Twenty-five years on, long after the shampoo brand which proved providential in bringing them together had been pulled from supermarket shelves, the celebrated romance of Ormoc’s first couple has remained as fresh and as relevant as the day they exchanged “I do’s” on April 28, 1998. Amid married life’s unexpected twists and turns, what has kept two of the most visible members of Philippine showbiz royalty together?
By ALEX Y. VERGARA
Photography by DOOKIE DUCAY • Art direction by DEXTER FRANCIS DE VERA
Styling by Mike De Guzman and George Palmiano for MGP
Makeup by Juan Sarte III • Hair by Iwa of HairManila
Shot on location at W/17, La Fuerza Compound, 2241 Chino Roces Ave. Makati City
Special thanks to MS. KAYE TINGA
He was one of the hottest and most awarded actors during his prime, a bronze-skinned demigod who instantly made heads turn and the ladies swoon, while she, a sheltered and delicate provincial lass blessed with patrician good looks and coming from a de buena familia down South, was definitely a prized catch.
When their four-month-old relationship, a whirlwind one even by today’s standards, culminated in marriage in 1998, the entire country stood up and took notice. After all, not only was the fairytale union of the virtual knight in shining armor and his shy, soft-spoken princess a rarity, it was perhaps the closest thing then to a royal wedding Filipinos would ever get.
Twenty-five years on, long after the shampoo brand which proved providential in bringing them together through a series of TV commercials they starred in, had been pulled from supermarket shelves, the celebrated romance of Rep. Richard Gomez and Ormoc Mayor Lucy Torres-Gomez has remained as fresh and as relevant as the day they exchanged “I do’s” on April 28, 1998 at the Sts. Peter and Paul Church in the bride’s beloved city.
Lucy, a four-term congresswoman from Leyte’s Fourth District before winning the mayoral seat once occupied by her husband last May, shrugs off the development as “just another milestone that’s already anchored in time.”
Dancing through time
“Well, almost every couple celebrates their 10th, 25th, then their 30th,” she says, while she and Richard, after an afternoon-long photo shoot, are seated together at one corner of the high-end home store W/17 in Makati. “So it shouldn’t feel any different from our previous wedding anniversaries. Because I think in any relationship, whether it’s the 10th, the 25th or even the 50th anniversary, it has to be able to dance through time.”
Richard nods, but the significance of the event, especially in their line of work, isn’t lost on him. “It’s very seldom in showbiz that a couple would last 25 years together. There are very few of us. Of course, if you ask me, I’m proud of our marriage. It seems like only yesterday. Ang laki na ni Juliana (Juliana [their daughter] is all grown up).”
As for Lucy, who attributes her positive mindset to her stable and happy family life while growing up in Ormoc, there wasn’t an iota of doubt in her mind, she says, when she finally said yes to Richard. “From the start, it was never like, ‘Shucks! Baka hindi mag-work (it might not work).’ What if this or that happens. No! I came into it with an open heart and a very positive mindset.”
And a prayerful one, perhaps? “Well, she prays over me, that’s for sure,” a smiling Richard cuts in.
“The strong foundation of this marriage, and perhaps any marriage, should really be [anchored] on love and plenty of understanding from my wife,” he continues.
“He came from a broken family and he knew from the start that it was something he didn’t want for his own family, so, I think, it made him more committed,” says Lucy. “As for me, I came from a family with a very solid background, and I didn’t want that to change.”
The Torreses’ tightly knit family bond, as Richard describes it, was one of the first things that struck him when he finally visited Lucy and her family for the first time in Ormoc in September 1997. It wasn’t long ago that the two had wrapped up shooting their final shampoo commercial for Lux. Although their friendship had deepened by then, by no means were they in a romantic relationship.
Same time, next year
The series of Lux commercials, which was shot almost every year from 1991 to 1997, was what Lucy describes as “our same time, next year” moments.
“It was just like that every year,” Lucy explains. “We’d meet on the set. He’d call me soon after we parted ways, asking me how I was. Nothing came of it because after a week or so, he’d stop calling. And I wasn’t the type who would initiate the call. Girls back then weren’t expected to do that. Besides, most of the time then, we were both in relationships with other people.”
Unlike in previous years, when Richard would call Lucy almost every day for a week soon after shooting had wrapped, the year 1997 was different. For one, it was most likely their last time to work together. The two principal characters in the commercial, a Romeo and Juliet of sorts played by them, after years of never bumping into each other and being filmed in one frame in earlier installments, had finally come face to face. There was no way for the story and the attendant public interest in it to go but down.
It was in Tauberbischofsheim, Germany in 1997, when Richard was in the thick of training as part of the Philippine fencing team for the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, that the situation took a totally different turn. He gave in to what was probably playing in his head since he and Lucy bid adieu on the Lux set some weeks before. Was she the girl that he, the country’s most eligible bachelor then, would want to spend the rest of his life with?
“On a whim, I called Lucy in Ormoc from a public phone in Germany,” he says. Their conversation, which lasted longer than they both had initially anticipated, was cut short because the phone no longer had any room left to accept Richard’s coins.
No “I love yous,” were exchanged, they both insist. A bit too early for that. Instead, Richard ended up, minutes after making the call, telling Lucy that he had plans to go to Ormoc to see her. Richard then asked Lucy the fastest way he could get there. “By plane from Manila via Tacloban and then a two-hour drive [to Ormoc] on good roads,” Lucy recalls telling Richard.
And as soon as Richard arrived in Manila a week or so later, he called Lucy again telling her to expect him because he’d soon be flying to her hometown to pay her and her family a visit. Lucy, in turn, lost no time telling her mother about it. Accompanied by a driver and a yaya on the day Richard was to arrive, she trooped to the Tacloban airport to collect her former Lux leading man and celebrity guest.
“I was still in a relationship back then,” says Lucy, laughing. “But I wasn’t doing anything wrong since I was just being a gracious host to a friend who knew next to nothing about Leyte. I asked Richard what he wanted to eat, and he said sinigang. So, I asked our cook to prepare it for dinner as soon as we arrived home.”
It was during that crucial visit that Richard, no doubt, inspired and impressed by what he saw, found the answer to his question: Yes, after all these years of searching, Lucy is the one! But, still, he kept his feelings close to his chest, as he soon had to fly to Jakarta with the rest of Team Philippines and try to win some fencing medals for the country at the SEA Games.
“By early December he flew back to Ormoc and proposed,” says Lucy. Of course, with her parents’ blessings, the then 23-year-old Management graduate said yes. By April next year, they were married.
“It was very fast,” she admits. But don’t think for one second that Lucy was rushed into making such a life-changing decision. As she herself reveals in this interview, her attraction to Richard, which later progressed into admiration and eventually love, was a “slow burn,” beginning when she was just a bright-eyed 12-year-old fan of the actor. But that’s getting ahead of our story.
Highly evolved love story
Their love story, which continues to unfold to this day, has evolved, for sure, bringing them welcome fruits through the decades, including a lovely and level-headed unica hija in the person of Juliana Gomez, now 22, a series of sitcoms, talk shows and even a top-rated dancing show featuring either one or both husband and wife, and, perhaps, the most unexpected twist of all, thriving political careers for both Richard and Lucy that are, at first blush, a universe away from their regular stomping grounds and comfort zones.
Although both would readily agree that their relationship is no more special or unusual than that of the next couple, they are also mindful on how it has managed to survive and thrive despite the vagaries that come with married life, moving forward with purpose and consistency, fueled by two hearts that respect and understand each other. The same two hearts, which give each other space and allow each person to grow while beating as one.
The differences in their backgrounds notwithstanding — he’s an only child and the product of a broken home, while she has had a stable family life, one of four children coming from a respected and affluent family in Leyte — the two claim to have managed to bridge their differences quite seamlessly from the get-go.
Even Richard’s outgoing nature, athleticism and penchant for easily making friends from all walks of life, which are in contrast to Lucy’s private nature and preference to stay home and keep to a small circle of really close friends, have become non-issues.
“He’s always been very sociable,” says Lucy of her husband. “He’s the type who would invite a friend over, even someone he just met recently. Juliana is very much like him in that respect. Although it’s not something I would normally do, I’m okay with it.”
And, as Lucy, a practicing Catholic and Marian devotee, would attest to anyone who’d care to listen, especially her daughter, it really pays to pray for the right partner. It’s something her grandmother ingrained in them early on. And, that was what she did, long before she decided to take up Management at the University of the Philippines in Cebu. And, based on how things have turned out, she has little reason to doubt her lola’s words of wisdom.
“That’s why the choice of a partner is really important. I feel that when a union is meant to be, there is a flow, and the best relationships — and I’m not saying that we have the best relationship — are those where each of you can reach his or her full potential and be the best person in anything you put your heart and mind in.”
Richard also attests to the importance of communicating and working together as a couple, which again proved crucial when he ran for congressman of Ormoc in 2010, but was later disqualified due to his supposed lack of residency. Both insist that it was a non-issue concocted by their political opponents.
The power of two
“It happened a week or so before the elections,” says Lucy. Early on, the couple knew that the other camp might use the non-residency issue against Richard. Although it was something they were bracing themselves for, they didn’t expect that it would actually gain traction.
“It wasn’t like I was forced into it,” Lucy adds, referring to the time she had to run posthaste in her husband’s stead. “What they didn’t know was we’ve always had a Plan B, C and D. Just like when I entered showbiz years before, I ended up again, after winning, in a world I knew nothing about. But politics and legislating weren’t as scary as I thought they would be. Just like in showbiz and in many other endeavors, you only hear the bad parts.”
Again, it was a team effort for husband and wife, as Richard, playing the role of the ever-supportive spouse, became Lucy’s chief of staff in Congress until such a time he had to quit, run and later win as Ormoc mayor in 2016. Lucy, until last year, went on to finish four terms as congresswoman of Leyte.
“There were plenty of things that were wrong or could be improved in Ormoc,” Richard, the two-term mayor of the city, in an earlier interview with this writer, disclosed. “Lucy and I have big plans and dreams for the people and the city of Ormoc, where we want to grow old and retire eventually. We can turn these dreams into reality faster if we work together.”
Differences, both major and minor, are bound to crop up when two people, especially people as intelligent and as opinionated as Lucy and Richard are, become one. How have they been able to resolve these over the years?
“We always sit down and take the time out to talk about them,” Richard says succinctly.
“I think it’s knowing how your partner works,” adds Lucy. “Like I know for a fact that he doesn’t like drama and long-drawn-out conversations. Ayaw niya ’yung paulit-ulit (he doesn’t like endless, repetitive discussions). Once we’ve come to a resolution, that’s it. Resolved na. Move on na.”
Lucy, on the other hand, feels the need to articulate what’s on her mind, which works perfectly well with Richard. He came into the relationship reminding Lucy ever so gently that “I’m no mind reader.” Thus, unlike in not a few relationships, the silent treatment has no place in the Gomez home.
“Very early on, he told me that if there’s anything bothering me, just say it. Don’t make him guess. We’ve been very good at communicating,” says Lucy.
Over the years, not a few friends have also asked Richard how he has made his marriage with Lucy work. Of course, there’s no one-size-fits all approach to any relationship. Instead of getting into the nitty-gritty of married life, he never tires of dispensing this piece of advice even before his friends think of taking the plunge.
Take it from Goma
“I always tell my friends that if they have doubts, don’t get married. Kasi every day, from the moment you wake up to the time you call it a day, you would be seeing that face, that same person. So, you have to be very sure that every time you wake up, you’re happy to see that person beside you.”
Finally, if someone were to produce a biopic of Richard and Lucy, say, 50 years from now, the cast of characters wouldn’t be complete without the talent caster Scho Parpan, who relentlessly pursued and tried to convince the then 16-year-old Lucy and her parents to allow her to star in a commercial of a yet-to-be-launched shampoo brand with an unnamed but famous actor as her leading man. Scho eventually became a good friend of the couple.
Based initially on a picture she saw of Lucy in a Fine Arts class, Scho was able to trace the then coed in one of her classes. Unknown to her, Lucy had been approached countless times before by various creatives to give modeling a try. She never bothered calling back. Apart from being shy and reluctant in front of a big audience, Lucy’s conservative parents, especially her dad, would never allow her to go that route.
This time, though, it was different because Scho, apart from being driven, happened to be the daughter of a good friend of Lucy’s aunt. To cut a long story short, Lucy’s dad finally relented as long as his sister would watch over Lucy while she was filming in Manila. Lucy had no idea who her leading man would be up to the last minute.
“I was already packing my bags for Manila when I learned that it was Richard,” Lucy says, almost screaming, as she reenacts her initial reaction upon learning who the mystery man was.
“Imagine, I’ve been watching almost all his movies, going to malls in big cities in the hopes of seeing him during one of those special appearances, to no avail. Then, magiging partner ko na!”
“I told Scho,” she says with chuckle, “had you told me immediately that it was Richard, I would have saved you all the trouble. I would have packed my bags and gone to Manila myself sooner.”
But like a true “dalagang Filipina,” Lucy played coy upon seeing Richard for the first time on the set of their initial collaboration. The “shiny and beautiful brown man,” as Lucy remembers Richard after laying eyes on her future husband for the very first time, turned out to be friendly, more like a big brother to her, during the shoot.
“Prior to that, I never liked vegetables and he must have noticed it,” she recalls with a laugh. “So, when Richard told me that I should eat my vegetables, then part of the packed lunch the production was serving, because it’s good daw for the body, I ate every piece of it.”
Earlier in the day, Richard sliced his baon, an apple, and gave the other half to Lucy. Unbeknownst to him, she kept the apple seeds inside a small white envelope, where they lay for years among other items in her “memory box” in Ormoc. That was in 1991.
When Lucy, then newly married to Richard, was packing her stuff for the big move to Manila in 1998, she was going through items in her memory box and eventually unearthed the long-forgotten envelope containing the apple seeds. By then, though, one of her most precious mementos of those early days was no longer what it was, as the seeds had already crumbled and turned to dust. Sentimental Lucy felt a tinge of sadness, but she was far from devastated. After all, as the song goes, those seeds are only made of, well, clay. But, 25 years on, hers and Richard’s love for each other is still here to stay.
