SHARON AT HER MOST FORTHCOMING
by Nestor U. Torre, Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 10, 2000

CHECHE Lazaro is one of the people Sharon Cuneta admires, so when the megastar guested on Cheche's The Probe Team last Tuesday, she was at her most forthcoming. Excerpts:

"Getting married at 18 was traumatic for me. By the time I was 21, my marriage had already broken up, and I was a mother. For eight months, I was useless, I couldn't do anything. My movies weren't making money. It was the worst time."

"For a long time, I was chasing after happiness, but eventually, I got tired. Then, when I thought I was ready for a life alone, I met my husband."

"Show business is very unstable and ungrateful. But I've stayed in it this long because I really love what I do. It's a dirty business, full of plastic people and users, but I've refused to be swallowed up by the system. And I've learned that, as a public figure, an entertainer, you need to have a sense of responsibility, a social conscience."

"About my running for mayor of Pasay City, I can't do that, I don't have the stomach for politics. There was a time when my father talked to me and ordered me to succeed him-'I'm not asking you, I'm commanding you,' he told me. 'Ito ang aking pinaghirapan, ikaw lang ang maaring pumalit sa akin!' But I really couldn't…

"I love my father more than my own life. The prospect of losing him terrifies me. Like I told my husband, if that happens, I don't know how I'll be…"

"What matter most to me now are love and family. That's why I'm making only one film this year. I really want to have a baby."

"It's true, I've made only a few stupid choices in my life--but they were all major!"

"So much has happened to me. I've been blessed, but you can have all the money in the world, and then you still say, 'How come I'm not happy?'"

'I've made big mistakes, but I have no regrets, because I've learned from them."