MOTHER’S Day is celebrated in May but I want to give tribute to one tough momma. You’ve got to give it to Mommy Ligaya—she raised her daughter Lea Salonga very well.
Why so? You see, there was a time when not a few members of the press—and even nonmembers—didn’t appreciate, much less understand, her honest, straightforward style of dealing with people. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, she was the showbiz mom to beat, even rising to the horror ladder a few rungs above Annabelle Rama, Daisy Romualdez and Divina Valencia. She may not be a sucker for scandalous interviews as the aforementioned tres Marias, often preferring stony silence, but you know what they say about silent waters.
Horror stories of how “difficult” she would surface left and right, one more exaggerated than the other maybe, but everyone was frightened by the mere mention of her name.
Now, many realize that Mommy Ligaya was right in maintaining her honesty and frankness in a business that unabashedly celebrates hypocrisy. Perhaps without Mommy Ligaya’s standards, Lea Salonga wouldn’t have been able to graduate from precocious child actress to wannabe teen star to the biggest international theater talent to come out of these islands Philippines.
How could Lea Salonga be Lea Salonga, not just the first Filipino but the first Asian to win back-to-back Olivier and Tony awards for Best Actress (for the mega-musical Miss Saigon of course) without the heart and the mind of a mother who had so much faith in her daughter who was dismissed early in her career as simply too theatrical?
How could Lea Salonga be Lea Salonga—the singing voice of Princess Jasmine in Aladdin who wowed everyone at the Oscars, before rendering the Mulan theme song way better than Christina Aguilera did—without the tenacity of a Ligaya Salonga?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not close to Mommy Ligaya (although that won’t stop me from calling her “mommy” because in showbiz, everyone is a mommy, tito, tita and your kumare) and she doesn’t know me from Adam Lambert, but I think she deserves much space in my column today for all the YouTube videos I’ve been seeing of Lea Salonga lately.
First off is that video of hers singing with Darren Criss. She sang “A Whole New World” with the Glee sensation, and she made the obviously intoxicated crowd quiet with her impeccable singing. They knew they were in the presence of music royalty.
Which leads me to her performance with Il Divo. The operatic pop group invited her to join them in their Asian tour and now in their UK tour to sing the Aladdin theme song with them. And a video of the collaboration doing the rounds in social media has Lea singing gorgeously the Alan Menken song. It was really a magical treat. And then there are the videos of the Miss Saigon 25th anniversary celebration. The applause that greeted her reveal was deafening, the audience unmistakably excited to see the original actress who brought Kim to life. She sang with Rachel Ann Go (who is now performing the character of Gigi in the current West End revival) the goose-bump inducing “The Movie in My Mind.” She then sang with Simon Bowman, the original Chris, the haunting duet “The Last Night of the World.” Lea that night was radiant, in control and on top of her game.
I’m so glad that the younger generation, thanks to these videos and thanks to her stint in The Voice Philippines (a much anticipated second season is in the works and will start airing next month on ABS-CBN), would get to experience the phenomenon that is Lea Salonga. And the kids of 1980s and 1990s like us would get to rediscover her brilliance. Which brings me back to Mommy Ligaya. Thanks to her, we have a Lea Salonga. Mommy Ligaya nurtured Lea like she knew she was meant for greatness. And she was right. Her daughter made every Filipino girl, boy, bakla and tomboy proud to be Pinoy.