A heartfelt letter to Pops, using her iconic songs to reflect on her journey through love, loss and personal growth.
Dito” from “Pops” (1982) is your first single, composed by our common friend Homer Flores. It has become our vocalization exercise: “Bakit kung ika’y wala na at di na magbabalik pa, ba’t kita naririnig, nakikita? At bakit ikaw, ay narito lang sa tabi, magkaakbay, kausap, kaulayaw sa tuwina; ba’t kapiling pa kita? Dito’y kapiling ka.”
It speaks of a lost love that left such a great impact in a person’s life. This is one of our warm up karaoke songs, as we are able to acknowledge you as a contemporary because we practically are in the same era, you as the “Concert Queen,” while we are in the background, as we watched you navigate your life in this industry.
It wasn’t an easy path to stardom for you. You were pitted against the singing icons of our time: Sharon Cuneta, Zsa Zsa Padilla, Joey Albert, Jam Morales, and others; but you remained kind.
You were also matched against the hosts of your batch like Dawn Zulueta, Dina Bonnevie, Snooky, even Maricel Soriano and Kris Aquino; and you remained kind.
We worked in “ASAP” during a turbulent time in your marriage, and as the sounding board of your husband, we were perceived to be in opposing camps; but you remained kind.
In truth, we were really hoping that your marriage can still be fixed (at that time), but fate had other plans, as rocky as your song’s “batuhang ito,” thank you Pops for being kind.
We’re sorry if we did not measure up at that time.
“Mahal Na Rin Kita” from “Awesome” (1989) is by composer Jimmy Antiporda. This song stuck with us.
As the years went on, we had common friends whom you genuinely loved and cared for; and we saw how you struggled as a single mother and picked up the pieces from lost loves. Consistently, your inner goodness shone through.
When our common friends would tell me how you would host and entertain them — and even cooked for them, ha — it was truly endearing to see the domesticated side of you.
As an actress, we enjoyed you as the nemesis of ZsaZshing in “ZsaZsa Zaturnnah Ze Moveeh,” and from that, we were expecting that you’d get your groove back into doing more of those risky and happy assignments.
But you took more and bigger risks — in business, in love and even in the integration of families. When you made peace with the person who hurt you and your marriage, and that powerful sight of you and Santino together, you have won us over.
Totoo Pops, “mahal na rin kita.”
“Don’t Say Goodbye” from “Awesome” will forever be our favorite song of yours. Composed by our dear Louie Ocampo, this has become your anthem as it reached the gold and platinum marks. Remember in the roster of Divas in “ASAP” ? This song was your signature.
Don’t say goodbye, it’s hard to let you go, Pipay. You continue to show beauty, goodness, compassion and love for people. Sorry to have missed that early on; but good that we are able to catch up.
We promised we’d watch you celebrate the 40 years of Martin and Pops, because intrinsic to your story is the act of forgiveness and unconditional love.
Martin, at the end of this song, does a back up vocal which goes, “Today I heard our song on the radio. Don’t say goodbye, girl.”
No more goodbyes for us Pops. So grateful that we made our history turn to good, and we’ll keep it that way – always and forever!
All the best on Friday, February 7 at the MOA Arena!
Love, Noel
