by Gerard Ramos, Mega Magazine, December/January 2000

"To be a bold star!"

So declare Sharon Cuneta with a laugh during her sitting before Raymund Isaac for this year ender slash millennial special. Swathed in a dreamy, creamy, creamy ensemble, with the fan gently, almost artfully tossing her hair this way and that and Donna Summer grooving in the background, the Megastar preens before Isaac's camera with what unshakable self-possession that must come over Christy Turlington in the face of Herb Ritts.

She is breathtaking. She knows it - and she is enjoying it. As she should...

Of course, Sharon's bold star fantasy is mentioned in jest but there is more to the declaration than an attempt at levity, or even a fleeting commentary on the troubles currently bedeviling the film industry to which she belongs. In recent years, she found herself at the receiving end of unkind cuts as her weight tripped the scales upon her return from Boston with lawyer slash husband Francisco "Kiko" Pangilinan. The Megastar recalls the especially mean-spirited snickering that followed the TV debut of her commercial endorsement of a milk product. "Of course, nobody bothered to find out why I had gotten that big," she says matter-of-factly. "I did that TV commercial while I was trying to have a baby and my doctor ordered me to mostly keep most activities at a minimum." Her attempt at pregnancy failed and still "all that people noticed was my weight."

 

It is one of the enduring injustices perpetrated by society, this never-ending obsession of ours with impossible beauty that renders whatever a woman's achievement seemingly worthless. Consider Nora Aunor, whom Sharon greatly admires and who may be the finest artist to ever come to popular culture hereabouts. whenever she appears in a film, however, and no matter how dazzlingly brilliant her performance, she is criticized for not being as magnificently preserved as Vilma Santos.

Just how Sharon handled this betrayal of her own considerable contributions to Philippine entertainment is reflective of not only the mature sensibility that I have had the good grace of encountering on the previous occasions that I sat with her at length, but also the admirable willfulness belied by the sweetness of her smile.

In not so many words, she simply ignored the snickering that went on and around about her weight. "I have always dealt with issues about myself on my own terms and on my own time and nobody else's," she tells me evenly. "Why should I let my happiness, my sense of self, dependent on the opinion of people who choose to look at women only in the most superficial way? I went on a diet when I was good and ready, when I myself wanted to lose weight and not because some person declared that I had grown fat and needed to shed off pounds." And no matter the assurance of friends and associates that she no longer needs to lose any more weight, Sharon herself will be the ultimate judge of that.

"I need to lose a few more," she smiles -- and adds, laughing with undisguised sarcasm, "I wouldn't be surprised if talk starts going around attributing my weight loss to drug use. Around here when a woman gains even a little weight, she is rumored to be pregnant. When she loses those extra pounds, she is gossiped about as doing drugs. you can imagine the difficulty women go through in trying to find their place in society where they won't have to suffer these indignities."

That Sharon Cuneta refused to suffer such indignities is a cue that other women ought to consider taking. As she preens some more before Isaac's Turlington moment without the baggage of other people's warped appreciation of womanhood is almost exhilarating. She is facing the dawn of the new millennium in utter gorgeousness and, more importantly, on her own terms - as a Megastar should. As any woman should...