by Bayani S. San Diego Jr., Parents, May 1999

"This is actually my first time in the mall... in the daytime," the Megastar reportedly whispered to her companion as they zoomed up the scenic elevator of Robinson's Galleria.

Although it was the height of the Christmas rush, Megastar Sharon Cuneta was able to go malling in peace, undisturbed by snapshot hunters, autograph seekers and other starstruck souls.

Sure, there was a solitary security guard hovering around her, so much like a clucking mother hen. But he was instructed to maintain a safe, respectful distance, to allow Ma'am Shawie a semblance of freedom. After all, it's not every day the Megastar could go malling. In the daytime. (To explain and digress a bit: The few times she had bravely ventured in the mall were late at night, to catch the last full show.)

Actually, Sharon wasn't making lakwatsa in the usual sense on that fine December afternoon. She was actually malling to treat a handful of celebrity kids (child star Camille Prats, the kids of Randy Santiago and the adopted daughters of Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago), as well as a dozen orphans (from the ill-fated Paco orphanage), to a day of fun rides, holiday cheer and Kris Kringle gifts in Robinson's Dreamscape amusement center, for the Yuletide episode of her ABS-CBN Sunday talk show, "Sharon."

Such carefree mall excursions are extremely rare because Sharon, the homebody, would much rather stay at home, snuggle up with a good book or watch movie after movie on cable TV (especially if it's a Bruce Lee or Jet Li slugfest).

Home is not just a physical structure made of stone and wood. For Sharon, home represents a "sanctuary" from the hustle and bustle of the outside world, the method and the madness of the showbiz world.

But she also has "a sanctuary within her sanctuary" - sanctuaries, actually. She has three favorite rooms in her spiffy new house somewhere in the suburbs. "The informal living (TV) room, our bedroom, the attic," Shawie names the three places she is most comfortable in at home. "My sister-in-law Connie (Mrs. Chet Cuneta) slept over for a few nights with my nephews and my Daddy (former Pasay City Mayor Pablo Cuneta), and she said that here daw, parang she was on vacation - slept really early and relaxed so much! That's how our room makes me feel - sleepy and relaxed. The TV room is where I spend a lot of time when I'm not working and when my family's not home. I just plop down on the sofa and become a couch potato! The attic is where all my abubots are (it's a glamorized bodega!), so it's fun for me to stay there sometimes."

Indeed Miss Mega at home is a spinning star at rest. At home, away from the dizzying glare of the spotlight, Shawie can indulge in her ultimate passions: cooking and reading, her favorite chore and pastime, respectively.

"I enjoy cooking the most," Sharon states. Her prized recipes for pasta have become legendary on movie sets. She usually whips up fettuccine and other pasta dishes for the entire cast and crew on the last shooting day.

Would she care to share recipes of inexpensive but tasty pasta meals with our readers? "So many ingredients are local naman and they don't cost so much," Shawie says. "But sorry - my recipes are secret (my friends know this about me - I may be generous, but my recipes are MINE, MINE, MINE!!! Sabi ko nga, you can have my jewelry but not my recipes! Hahaha!) You'll have to visit me if you want to have another taste of something I cooked for you before."

She is also a certified bookworm, a regular customer of the world's best bookstores.

"I have just come out of my Amy Tan mode!" Sharon reports, enthusiastically. "I loved Hundred Secret Senses. I couldn't put it down! Kahit bumababa ako ng stairs, dahan-dahan kasi binabasa ko (Even when I was going down the stairs, I'd go slowly because I was reading)! Then I dove right into [Tan's] Kitchen God's Wife - which I started na a long time ago but got to finish just a while back. Bitin nga eh! I'm now back to Sidney Sheldon (The Best-Laid Plant). Then back to Banana Yoshimoto!"

Others on her reading list are Heartheat by Danielle Steele, Detective by Arthur Hailey, Bag of Bones by Stephen King and The Woman With Two Navels by National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin. She has also recently discovered US-based Filipina jorunalist Sophia G. Romero's debut novel Always Hiding and Chinese writer Adeline Yen Mah's poignant autobiography Falling Leaves.

An all-time favorite is Japanese Gen X-writer Yoshimmoto's Kitchen.

She loves kitchens - both the literary and the culinary varieties.

Aside from her sunny, suburban home, her "electronic" home, her new web site, is also keeping the Megastar on her toes. The "official" home page www.sharoncuneta.com has been flooded with visitors since it went online last Nov. 12. After less than five months, it has notched 53,871 hits and counting.

The worldwide web is a new frontier to explore for Miss Mega, the same accomplished celebrity who has conquered such diverse fields as recording, movies, TV and advertising, throughout her stellar two-decade-old, multimedia career.

"I visited my web site a while back," Sharon relates. "I even answered some of the messages in the guestbook! I guess people again won't believe me when I send my answer!"

One lucky letter-sender was a grade-schooler who showed off the Megastar's response to incredulous classmates. "Hindi naman si Sharon ang sumulat niyan," the unbelieving classmate sneered. Learning that, Sharon, with dispatch, sent a second e-mail, signed thus" "Sharon, Guaranteed!"

"Overwhelming," was how Webmaster Ronnie Miranda, president of Storm Visualization & Imaging, described the response thus far. "It has really been a much-awaited web site not only locally, but globally." Indeed, her guestbook reads like the logbook of a Miss Universe/Olympic Village/United Nations dormitory. Visitors from as near as Polomolok (South Cotabato) to as far away as Sweden, as well as from exotic cities like Oxbow (Canada), Kolonial Pohnpei (Micronesia), Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Auckland (New Zealand), Stavanger (Norway), Etobicoke (Canada), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Lahaina (Hawaii), and Riyadh (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), have signed in the guestbook.

Filipina nurses from Fort Worth, Texas, expressed their thanks to Sharon, whose Sunday gabfest is seen all over North America (courtesy of The Filipino Channel). Sharon, as far as these transplanted and homesick Pinoys are concerned, is a constant reminder of the land they once called home.

Guests also wrote, to send in their requests (a la "Mr. DJ") and to greet Miss Mega "Happy Holidays!" and a "Happy Birthday!" (January 6). Because of the holiday rush, however, Sharon has decided to go easy on the electronic fan mail first. But fans could write as soon as possible, "as soon as Sharon could catch up" with the deluge of e-mail. (It is not uncommon for her to receive 500 electronic missives a day!) Sharon's right hand, in fact, suffered from cramps after all that writing and typing of holiday greetings, and all that wrapping and unwrapping of Christmas presents.

Mega-Shawie enthuses: "I am really excited. I still get surprised by all the love and support!"

She is still bewildered why people love her so.

One leisurely night, while she was checking her e-mail and channel-surfing at the same time, she caught the Ricki Lake movie Mrs. Winterbourne on cable. "Hay, Boston kasi ang setting," Sharon waxes nostalgic. "And I'm getting homesick."

Instant flashback. For one whole year, Miss Mega was able to experience a somber, suburban life in Boston, where she kept house for hubby Atty. Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan who earned a master's degree in Public Administration at Harvard.

In Boston, she was able to live a "normal" life driving for the first time, to pick up KC from school (she was a 7th Grader at Beaver Country Day School), picnicking and barbecuing in the park with Kiko's classmates, watching and cheering while KC played la crosse and soccer and did some twirls on the ice-skating rink, having coffee with her "sweet" landlady who treated her like a long-lost daughter. Before she left, she predicted that Boston would also be a great change of pace for daughter KC - a chance for the budding young lady to experience life as a "normal teener."

"In Boston she washed the dishes, and we insisted that she fix her room," Shawie looks back. "We tell her to at least fix her room here in Manila and clean it, but I think her yaya and our maids have been doing that for her (hmmmmm...)!" Sha laughs.

One particular chore she enjoyed doing in Boston was shopping. She even kept a discount card for Star Market. "The grocery store where I loved to go when we lived in Boston! I always tried to find an excuse to go there. Paano I was so free to move around, and I enjoyed going to the supermarket very much. I miss it na nga eh!" (Back here, in Manila, Kiko and KC are assigned to do the weekly groceries - task Sharon is inhibited from enjoying, for very obvious reasons.)

Between her home chores and a world concert tour (that world her to Winnipeg and Vancouver in Canada, London in the United Kingdom and San Francisco, Los Angeles and Reno in the United States), Sharon also found (actually, made) the time to enroll as a freshman in Boston College. She even clinched a grade of A for Literary Works. Such simple joys blessed her heart so.

In Boston, her rustic reverie was interrupted only by the "chirping of birds" and such unexpected guests as "a deer, a squirrel and a raccoon in their backyard." (Their "little lovely home" was located beside a government-protected wooded are.)

The Boston break has yielded number of precious life lessons: "Boston is a real blessing. I "found" myself and paid a little more attention to the little girl in me, and the mom, and the wife, just the person. I got to the bottom of my heart of hearts and am never letting go again."

Funny thing is, she had to fly all the way to Boston, cross a mighty ocean, and travel across continents and time zones, to discover that what she had always been looking for, the "little girl she lost," that elusive place called home, has always been within her. Sharon's home - the physical, metaphorical and electronic varieties - has always been in the heart.

At the end of the Sharon episode featuring child stars Snooky Serna. Nino Muhlach, Marilyn Reynes and Aiza Seguerra, the Megastar introduced the dramatic "parental" bailed "If I Could" with a simple yet eloquent message addressed to families everywhere. "Nurture the gifts, but nurture the child first." By the end of the hour long discussion it became readily apparent that not all the wealth in the world can buy back a "lost childhood." The Megastar knows whereof they spoke. The precocious DJ's Pet started singing at age 12, and acting in Dear Heart) at age 15. Showbiz has been her world since her teenage years, music has been flowing in her veins since she was this high. Is it any wonder that her own daughter exhibits the same artistic inclination? In fact Sharon herself has noticed that KC has a natural call for music. "She loves to sing and listen to music," the proud Mega-Mom reports, beaming. When the family was in Boston, KC aside from being an active athlete, was also part of the school production of the musical The Wiz. "And she sang beautifully!" says Sharon. That being so, inquiring minds would like to know whether she would allow daughter Kristina Cassandra "KC" Concepcion to follow in her famous footsteps. "Because I started out really young, "Sharon elaborates, "I know now what I could have lived without - what I should have or have not done. And so I would like KC to live the life of a normal kid first. In attend to her schoolwork without too many distractions. When she's a bit older and she still expresses a desire to go into showbiz like her parents, and I see that she's prepared to handle all the demands of the business without spreading herself too thin, then I'll support her. Sharon also offers gentle encouragement to other creamy youngsters out there who would like to achieve superstardom. "I guess when you're really young and you're given the opportunity to share your talents with an audience, that's okay. Showbiz is better than having nothing but school to face every single day and getting involved in 'bad' things like drugs." "It's all a matter of priorities and time management." Sha stresses. "As long as you set your priorities straight God, family and school first before a 'career'. I just don't think that kids should be forced to stay up all night taping or shooting. Work for kids has to be limited. Their health and well-being should come first." She feels strongly about the issue to child labor in the movie and music industries. "And once you've become too serious about show business at a very tender age, you'll miss out on all the normal experience of growing up. This is so unhealthy and I wouldn't advise this to anyone. Besides, you give up your privacy before even understanding how precious it is. Once you're in the business, you'll never be able to buy your privacy back." She now volunteers precious advice to starry -eyed showbiz hopefuls. "For those who are serious - and ready - to go into the business, I'd like to tell you that it's not all fun and glamour. It is a lot of hard work, more often than not, so be aware of that. And remember that your audience (or the business) doesn't owe you anything. You owe the fans (and the business) something; you owe them for the countless opportunities. So never do things half-heartedly. Keep your feet on the ground. Being mayabang (arrogant) and having a lousy attitude won't get you anywhere. Keep all the values your parents have taught you, no matter how tempting it gets to ignore them. And lastly, love your work and it will love you back." In sum. Ma'am Mega, sounding like a concerned Mega-Mom, states simply: "God wants all of us to find our gifts and to use them wisely. To benefit from and share our gifts with others. Work for Him and He'll guide you and take care of you all the way," thus sayeth the Mega-Mom.