Before Jennylyn Mercado moved in to her new house, she and her Mommy Lydia rented this charming condominium in Quezon City.
The Mercados have a two-story house at the BF Resort Homes in Las Piñas—and if it wasn't such a hassle to keep shuttling between Las Piñas (where Jennylyn grew up) and Quezon City (where her home studio, GMA-7 is based), the StarStruck Ultimate Survivor would not have allowed herself to be uprooted.
The hometown house, after all, is a place Jen knows by heart. And the house knows her back as well. It is, you see, the house where the childless couple Lydia and Rogelio Mercado raised their adopted daughter Jen.
As many televiewers know by now, Jennylyn is really Lydia Mercado's niece, the daughter of Lydia's sister—whose name Lydia begs us not to mention anymore. How Jen came under the care of her aunt is the stuff that telenovelas are made of.
"Ako kasi," Mommy Lydia discloses, "mahilig ako sa ampon. Madami akong nagiging ampon. Madaming-madami. May bakla, may tomboy, may hindi bakla at tomboy..."
She continues, "Ngayon, ýong kapatid ko saka ýong asawa niya"—that is, Jen's real father, Noli Pineda—"naghiwalay. Noong araw, sa amin sila nakatira, ‘tapos naghiwalay. Sabi ng tatay niya, parang magtiwala sa akin, na iwan na lang niya si Jennylyn sa akin.
"'Yong mommy niya, may ibang pamilya na ngayon sa London. Ang daddy naman niya, napunta sa Korea. So si Jennylyn, lumaki sa akin at hindi ko kailanman siya itinago sa kanyang tunay na mga magulang."
The fact that she's an adopted child was never a secret to Jen. But this was not something the Mercados went around proclaiming to the whole world. It was only when Jennylyn Mercado became a popular teen star that fragments about her past life emerged.
"Nakahanda naman kaming lalabas ýon sa press," says the adoptive mother.
"Kasi alam naman namin na 'pag napasok ka sa showbiz, lahat kakalkalin."
However, she admits, "Si Jennylyn, naiyak pa rin siya. Gusto kasi ni Jennylyn ng tahimik na buhay."
In June 2004, Jen's biological father, Noli Pineda, now 50, came home for a holiday. His arrival did not go unnoticed in the press. Reports came out saying that he was asking for money from his now self-sufficient daughter. This, Jennylyn strongly denied. What her father wanted, she said, was for Jennylyn to use his surname.
Jen explains: "Bale sa birth certificate po, Pineda talaga—Jennilyn Pineda. Pero sa showbiz, Mercado pa din po, kasi ang hirap nang magpalit. Pero Jennilyn po talaga pangalan ko, ginawa na lang Jennylyn ngayon. Siguro naman, maiintindihan niya."
Still, according to Jen, she and her biological father keep in touch, even if they don't get to see each other often, since he's based in Korea.
It is her mother she refuses to talk about. In the October 14 episode of the TV series Magpakailanman, which featured her life story, we learned why.
In 1991, when she was nearly four years old, Jennylyn made headlines as a battered child.
Her assailant was her stepfather. He burned Jen's young skin with cigarette butts and whacked her back with a flat iron. Her mother, who was then in Dubai working as a domestic helper, immediately came home.
Sadly, though, she came home not to take care of her daughter but to bail out her cruel partner, who was in detention.
It was then that Mrs. Lydia Mercado decided to legally adopt Jennylyn.
Jen says she came out with her story on TV to set the record straight: "Kasi nga, unti-unti nang lumalabas, parang my past is haunting me... E, kesa naman mali-mali pa ang lumabas, kesa inaccurate, nag-decide ako na ilabas na."
Now that her past life is an open book, Jen can easily breeze through her new one. For one thing, she has learned to adjust to the reality that she is now a Quezon City resident.
"Maganda naman dito, tahimik," says Mommy Lydia of the condominium that serves as their second home, a yellow sanctuary in a hectic city. "Ang gusto ko rito, ýong security guard, Hindi basta-basta nagpapapasok kung hindi ka tatawagan. Ýan ang maganda rito. Parang tiwala ka."
Mang Rogelio, Jennylyn's beloved adopted father, still stays in the Las Piñas house, but every Friday he visits his mag-ina in Quezon City.
It's a happy ending, after all.