To date, Maria Divina Tua Geronimo—known by all as Mommy Divine—has given only one long and formal interview. In the 28 years that her superstar daughter Sarah Geronimo has been in show business, just one.
Steering clear from the movie press, Mommy Divine has been content to be the hidden power behind her daughter's rags-to-riches life and extraordinary career.
Yet nothing that has happened to Sarah, both personally and professionally, could have happened without Mommy Divine's imprimatur. So large has her presence been in Sarah's life that even Sarah's father, Delfin, is clearly overshadowed.
That is just the way things have run in Sarah's kingdom—until, of course, today, when Matteo Guidicelli has come into Sarah's life.
But that is getting ahead of the story.
What happened first is that, over the years, Sarah's stardom just kept peaking. Under the Viva Artists Agency, the girl who just wanted to sing reached phenomenal heights, becoming the country's Popstar Princess, Popstar Royalty, Box-Office Star, Top Celebrity Endorser, Total Performer, and International Concert Draw.
It was this desirable stardom, the goal that Mommy Divine had for her third child, that also made keeping in the background increasingly harder for Mommy Divine.
By 2010—or 18 years after Sarah first appeared as just one of many kids singing in Pen Pen de Sarapen, an RPN 9 Saturday variety show—the singer-actress-stage performer had become a clear magnet for the press and the public. She sold copy. She sold air time. She sold products.
All this invariably led to an interest in the 22-year-old's love life.
Talk within television circles, where Sarah now had her own self-titled Sunday TV show, Sarah G, was that Sarah had a suitor and that she liked him back. But, everyone was blank—Who was it? Was it John Lloyd Cruz? Was it Billy Crawford? Was it Rayver Cruz?
Naturally, everyone also wanted to know what Mommy Divine had to say to all this.
Mommy Divine was beleaguered. It was important to her to have the world know that her daughter was safe and saintly. She could no longer allow rumors about swains to swirl around her daughter without raising her voice. And so, she gave the only hours-long interview she would ever give, thus far.
It was close to a four-hour, sit-down interview with Jo-Ann Q. Maglipon, held on December 23, 2010, that would appear on magazine stands as the March 2011 cover issue of YES! Magazine, of which Jo-Ann was editor in chief.
Held at the Geronimo family home on Mindanao Avenue in Quezon City, amid boughs of red and green in a house clearly embracing Christmas, the interview began at roughly past ten in the evening and ended at roughly three in the morning the following day.
Sarah herself was present, a sweet young girl in a housedress, looking nowhere like the superstar she already was.
But, at a certain point the superstar's head began bobbing, while her lids began closing on their own volition. She would stir herself awake at the sound of her mother's voice, which rose with every mention of God, but It was three in the morning, really. Even superstars had to slip into dreamland.
And so it was Mommy Divine, very wide awake and very intent on being understood, who did all the talking for the entire family.
Appropriately, the interview would be conducted in the mezzanine at the top of the stairs, where an altar filled with saints lorded it over everyone present. Mommy Divine called it "the prayer room," and this was where she would end up talking about her religious, moral, and parental principles.
At key moments, she would get up and supplicate herself before the altar, to show Jo-Ann exactly what she meant when she said she implored God to shine the light on Sarah, who was in the midst of her first big heartache.
Divine would also talk, in matter-of-fact but sad detail, about how the Geronomino family once went bankrupt—losing home, belongings, and small businesses. She would after that talk, again in heartfelt detail, about what she and her husband sacrificed to keep their four children fed and schooled.
And finally she would talk about why she thinks Sarah, this third child, was even given overwhelming gifts and talents that would, in the end, raise them all up from the depths of poverty. In Mommy Divine's words, "Itinakda ng Diyos."
We reproduce that interview by Jo-Ann Maglipon, today also the editor in chief of PEP.ph (Philippine Entertainment Portal).
This article on Divine was written by YES! senior writer Candice Lim Venturanza, as a sidebar with the title "Divine Intervention," and set within a bigger article with the title "Sarah: Her First Real Heartbreak," written by Jo-Ann Maglipon.
DIVINE INTERVENTION
She is often seen as the kontrabida in her daughter’s life, and she says so herself.
But for Mommy Divine, her actions are only appropriate for someone who firmly believes she has been called to be the steward of her children, most especially Sarah, one of God’s favored ones.
It is her duty, Mommy Divine contends, to protect and lead her children in the right direction, the path to the divine.
“Sobrang bait mo sa amin,” Divine said in her nightly prayers to God during that tumultuous time in Sarah’s life. “Sobrang bait mo sa kanya [Sarah], baka makagawa siya ng bagay na…”
Divine’s voice trails off as she recalls the words of her prayer, but it picks up as she explains the importance of the family’s devotion to the Almighty.
“Sobrang bait ng Diyos sa amin—iyong blessing niya, kung paano niya kami inangat. Hindi naman po maintindihan ng tao ’yon, e.
"Hindi nila alam kung ano iyong pinagdaanan namin. Masyado pong malalim ang tiniis naming hirap…”
And so, when Cupid had Sarah in a chokehold—thanks to the boyish charms of Rayver Cruz, whom Sarah was always on the phone with—Divine felt that the family was on the brink of falling from grace.
For Divine, Rayver was a distraction, an obstacle to an otherwise clear path. She did not see good intentions in him. Had the boy been pure-hearted, she said, he would not have gone against their will as Sarah’s parents.
He would have paid attention to Divine’s rule that Sarah was not allowed to have a boyfriend.
Mommy Divine says she and her husband didn't know that Sarah and Rayver, despite their restrictions, were already having a relationship then. All they knew was that Sarah was clearly distracted and becoming detached from the rest of the family.
They were just as clueless when the relationship went shaky.
"Naramdaman na rin namin... Hindi niya lang kami madiretso, pero halos ipaglaban na niya, pero gano'n.
"'Yon po ang pinakamasakit na halos ikamatay niya rin. Kung makikita niya lang po 'yong anak ko, Diyos ko, halos patayin na niya 'yong sarili niya. Ihampas na niya 'yong ulo niya sa ano.
"Siyempre ang bait-bait niya, 'tapos gagano'nin siya. Di naman pa siya sa nakakadanas pa ng ano.
"Kaya 'yong panahon na nalalaman na niya na parang niloloko siya—siguro nabo-bother siya na sinusuway na niya kami—bakit gano'n 'yong tao pagkatapos?
"'Yong lalaki, niloloko pa siya. No'ng time na nabuking na lahat? Lumiliwanag ang pag-iisip niya [Sarah].
"Kasi, pag nagdadasal kami, hindi ko napipigil 'yong iyak ko do'n. Do'n niya siguro nalalaman na sakit na sakit na din kami.
"Do'n niya nakikita, do'n na siya nakonsensiya, do'n niya sinasabi na, 'Patawarin niyo po ako... 'Yong relasyon ko sa inyo, 'yong mga relasyon ko sa mga kapatid ko, muntik ko nang i-give up. Sobrang sakit.'
"'Yon ang pinanggagalaiti niya—na nagawa niya 'yon dahil sa taong 'yon."
Divine says of Rayver, “Nilipastangan niya ang patakaran ko sa pamilya ko, e. Na ’wag muna. Kasi, iyong anak ko, marami pang dapat gawin na mas mahalaga…
"Para sa akin po, iyong ibinigay ng Diyos sa amin na ito, hindi basta-basta na lang dumating…”
[It is fitting to say here that when Jo-Ann Maglipon interviews Rayver Cruz to get his side, the 19-year-old is forthright and denies any wrongdoing. PEP.ph will carry his narrative in the coming days.—Ed]
TRIALS & TRIBULATIONS
Divine is the second to the youngest of 12 kids. To help finance her A.B. Economics course at the University of Santo Tomas, she and her siblings had to divide their time between studying and working.
From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Divine says, she was a “teller sa main building”; from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., she was a student; a few minutes past 9 p.m., she was home, as the family rules dictated. Since she was living nearby, she walked every day to work and to school.
“I never experienced iyong buhay ng dalaga na nagpupunta sa mga bar,” she reveals, sounding like this is, in fact, the proper way for a young lady to live. “Never. Never in my life.”
She simply had no time for it, anyway. Aside from her office work, she would also help her mother sell tocino to Divine's officemates. On Sundays, she served the church where the family worshipped as a choir member and as an usherette.
“Hindi bago sa akin ang hirap ng buhay,” she says matter of factly.
Things didn’t change much after Divine wed Delfin. They had no one but themselves to rely on to survive. Soon, they had three mouths to feed—Jonah, Sunshine, and Sarah.
Daddy, as Divine calls Delfin, worked as a lineman for PLDT, while Divine cared for the children. “Hindi kami tumigil sa paghanap po [ng pera] ni Daddy,” says Divine. “Gabi, araw, talagang lahat ng hirap, dinaanan namin… Lahat, lahat…”
Since the family’s income was never enough to provide for a growing family, Divine had to think of ways to help ease the burden on Delfin. When Sarah was around two years old, Divine turned entrepreneur.
From a friend who had a garments business, the enterprising mom got, on consignment, T-shirts made of imported materials, and sold these to friends. When the venture proved to be profitable, she decided to sell her wares from a small table that served as her retail space at the Zurbaran Street market in Sta. Cruz, Manila. The area was then famous for its dry goods.
“Hindi ko alam kung bakit ko nagagawa lahat ’yon,” she says, looking back. “Kasi siguro, dahil mahirap ang buhay. Lahat, kailangan kong gawin para makatulong…”
Delfin worked in the mornings, after which he went home and took his turn taking care of the children. Divine would then go to Zurbaran. The business—by the grace of God, says Divine—grew. The small table became four boutiques.
“Awa naman po ng Diyos, ipinatikim din naman po sa akin iyong medyo guminhawa na rin naman po iyong buhay namin. Kahit papaano naman po e nakakahawak na rin naman ako ng malaking pera.”
Things seemed to be looking up for the Geronimos.
But then tragedy struck. In the early ’90s, during the presidency of the late Corazon Aquino, the country suffered several economic setbacks—a devastating earthquake, the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo, constant power outages.
“Ang Zurbaran po, ang nangyari no’n, ilang months walang kuryente iyan,” Divine recalls. “So ang gamit namin, puro de-baterya na ilaw. Because walang kuryente, walang pumupunta. Wala nang bumibili. Bukod sa madilim, mainit pa. Wala na.”
It didn’t help that the Tutuban Mall in the commercial district of Divisoria opened, enticing shoppers with its air-conditioned facilities.
The Geronimos started to lose it all—the boutiques, the car, the mortgaged house that they had just bought. The family was poorer than when they started. In short, they were going “bankrupt.”
If there was something that kept the family’s spirits high, it was Sarah’s regular appearance in kiddie shows like RPN-9’s Pen Pen de Sarapen and ABS-CBN’s Ang TV. Sarah also joined a number of contests, some of which she won.
“Alam n’yo po, noon ang bayad niyan sa Channel 9, isang biskuwit lang,” the mother says with a smile. “Hindi namin nakikita iyong pera…
"Hirap na hirap kami sa buhay, pero masaya kami na gumagawa kami ni Daddy ng mga costume niya. Tinatahi namin. Parang iyon na ang pinaka nagpapagaan ng buhay namin.”
For little Sarah, those guesting stints were just a way to give expression to her natural inclination to perform.
“Napakabibo niyang bata,” says Divine of Sarah. “Napakamasayahin niya, iyong sumasayaw siya, kumakanta.”
Still down and out, the family was forced to move into a small apartment in an alley in Sta. Cruz, Manila. The place had several tenants, but none stayed long there, since people believed it to be haunted and malas to its dwellers.
Divine started having nightmares: “Pagbukas ko ng bintana, may kabaong ng bata.” In another dream, she saw “maraming dugo at nakakalat na karne sa paligid.” The nightmares became a nightly occurrence. “Gabi-gabi, gabi-gabi po iyan na nananaginip ako ng mga nakakatakot.”
At around this time, Divine accompanied a friend who went to see a psychic in Bulacan. Her friend had just had her store robbed and wanted to consult the manghuhula to know if the robbery was an inside job.
Divine, who says she doesn’t believe in the supernatural, also consulted the psychic about the ghoulish apparitions in her dreams.
She recalls the manghuhula telling her: “Itong tinitirahan mong ito, lahat ng tumira dito, nasira ang buhay, naba-bankrupt… Ikaw ang tinamaan matindi. Kailangang umalis ka na sa lugar na ito. Kung hindi, mababaon ka nang mababaon.
"Iyong lahat ng napapanaginipan mo—masuwerte ka, kasi gina-guide ka ng Holy Spirit at saka ipinapakita niya talaga kung ano ang laman ng ilalim ng lupa mo. Tinabunan mo sila, e. Sementeryo ’yong tinitirhan mo.”
The Geronimos could not afford to be superstitious, and so they stayed in the place that the psychic had said was once a cemetery. During this time, Divine says that the family’s finances were at its worst.
Friends began staying away from them because they would constantly borrow money. The kids’ school had a number of the couple’s promissory notes for unpaid tuition fees. The Geronimos sold whatever they had that could turn profit. Divine was also pregnant with their youngest child, Gabriel.
“Iyong mister ko, lahat ng sahod niya every month, nauutang na namin,” says Divine. “Kumbaga, susuwelduhin mo pa lang, naiutang na. So zero, zero na kami. Negative.”
The family had only God to turn to, Divine says.
And so she prayed to God: “Tanggap ko po kung ano na itong nangyayari sa buhay namin. Ang sa akin lang po, e, bigyan N’yo ako ng lakas para kayanin itong krus na ito… Papasanin ko hanggat kaya ko.”
To make matters worse, the apartment’s landlady was planning to sell the apartment. The landlady’s relatives were trying to broker the house, but she made a deal with Divine: if Divine could sell the property to a relative, Divine would get a commission.
Fortunately, Divine was able to find a buyer, a non-relative who happened to have Geronimo for a surname. The landlady agreed to sell, and she gave Divine the promised P100,000 commission.
“Kahit kailan, pag ako nagdasal sa Diyos, ramdam na ramdam ko po talagang nakakarating,” says Divine. “Nakakarating. Talagang nakikita ko kaagad iyong kasagutan.”
The windfall enabled the family to pay off their debt and move into a two-story house on Oroquieta Street, Sta. Cruz, in Manila. The Geronimos crammed into one of the bedrooms and rented out the two other rooms to doctors working at a nearby hospital. In the afternoons, Divine sold barbecue outside their house.
Life for the Geronimos became a dull routine.
In the morning, Delfin would go to work, and Divine would walk the kids to school, after which she would go to market to buy the ingredients for her barbecue, go back home to prepare the barbecue, and then finish the household chores.
At lunchtime, she would bring food to her daughters in school and fetch her son from pre-school. She would put the boy to sleep and start selling barbecue. At night, after she had tucked her kids in, she would do the boarders’ laundry to earn a little more.
Nevertheless, the Geronimos barely got by. Fortunately, family members often came to their rescue at the most opportune time.
“Buwan-buwan, pinuputulan kami ng ilaw, ng tubig,” Divine reveals. “Buwan-buwan iyon, walang palya.
"May mga pagkakataon na pinuputulan ka ng ilaw, biglang tatawag iyong kuya ko. Sabi ko, ‘Kuya, pinuputulan kami ng ilaw…’ ‘Kunin mo dito iyong pambayad. Sige, bayaran mo.’”
Though life was hard, Divine did not feel bad. “Parang masaya ako. Hindi ko alam kung bakit gano’n kagaan…”
The family also got hand-ups (as opposed to handouts) from strangers. A storeowner allowed the family to still get rice even when they hadn’t paid for a month’s worth of the commodity.
Two Indian women who made the rounds in the neighborhood, lending money, were warned about the Geronimos’ bad credit record, but they still loaned the family money.
“Every time na naniningil siya, nagbabayad ka, susuklian ka niya nang sobra-sobra,” says Divine in amazement about one Indian lady in particular.
“Minsan, sobra pa ng dalawang daan… Sabi ko, ‘Eto, o, sobra, o.’ I-smile lang siya sa ’kin, aalis na siya. Gano’n po lagi… Siguro naawa sila sa ’min, sa mga anak ko.”
The Geronimo kids experienced poverty first hand. There were times when Divine had nothing to feed them with but rice flavored with mantika, toyo, or mantikilya.
“Natutuwa naman sila kasi masarap naman,” Divine says.
But the good times were often overshadowed by the family’s tribulations.
In 2004, the Geronimo’s eldest daughter, Jonah, needed to undergo surgery on an impacted tooth that had developed into a bone problem. The operation set the family back by P200,000.
To fund the procedure, Daddy Delfin decided to take the early-retirement option of his company so that he could get his retirement pay. Unfortunately, the pay-out process was going to take time. Again, the family was forced to make promissory notes to the doctors
A STAR IS BORN
Sarah, who was 13 years old at that time, was given a chance to join a reality star search contest on RPN-9, Star for a Night, hosted by Regine Velasquez.
The family were actually skeptical that their youngest daughter would prosper in showbiz. Sarah had been, after all, on the fringes of showbiz even before she was old enough to read.
As Divine puts it, “Hindi naman siya napapansin.”
But the tide had changed for Sarah. She bested her competitors and proved to be a top contender, alongside fellow newbie Mark Bautista.
The day before the finals, where the winner would take home a million pesos, Divine bought a 300-peso cellphone load, so that she could vote for Sarah.
As in the past, Divine turned to God, not to plead with Him for Sarah to win, but as a reminder of her resignation to His will.
She recalls her prayer: “Ito lang po iyong card ko. Ito lang po iyong kaya ko… Kayo na po bahala sa buhay namin. Hindi ko po hinihingi, pero kung ibibigay N’yo, Kayo po bahala kung mananalo siya o hindi. Kayo po ang nakaaalam.”
Divine knew that one cellphone card would not be enough to give her daughter the text votes needed to win the contest. So she decided to go to a mall in Ermita, Manila, and distribute leaflets, encouraging mall-goers to vote for her daughter.
“Nahuli ako,” she reveals. “Na-detain ako kasi bawal daw mamigay ng leaflet sa loob ng mall!”
The mall did not allow people to distribute any form of promotional material without proper permission beforehand. Divine was brought to the mall’s security office for questioning.
“Nagmakaawa ako,” she continues. “Sabi ko, ‘Maawa naman po kayo sa akin… Hindi ko naman kasi alam na bawal. Kasi, kung alam kong bawal, hindi ko gagawin.’
"‘Anak mo ba ’yan?’ ‘Opo.’ ‘A, gano’n ba? O, sige, patatawarin ka na namin.’ Ang tagal ko do’n. Talagang hiyang-hiya ako.”
To make matters worse, Sarah was feeling under the weather on finals night. She had also just gotten her monthly period. Trying to fight nerves, she constantly vocalized backstage, earning the ire of fellow contestants who wanted peace and quiet before the show.
Her parents could not come to the rescue, since they were not allowed to join her. She was all alone.
“Inspirasyon ko po ’yong family ko, ’yong hirap na pinagdadaanan namin ngayon,” Sarah said in a taped interview that would be played before her final Star for a Night performance.
“Mommy, Daddy, para sa inyo ’tong laban na ito. Alam ko na ang dami-dami n’yo nang hirap ’tsaka sacrifices para sa akin...”
In tears, Sarah spoke of small tensions in the family, which centered on her getting the lion’s share of her parents’ attention.
“Alam ko na madalas mag-away ’yong family natin dahil sa pag-treat ng parents ko sa ’kin dahil sa ginagawa ko. Iyong sisters ko po—siyempre, hindi naman po maiiwasan na magkaroon ng inggitan.
"Naiintindihan ko po ’yon, kaya gagawin ko lahat ng best ko sa laban na ’to. Papatunayan ko na worth ako, ’tsaka para maipakita ko sa mga kapatid ko na mahal ko sila, na para rin naman sa amin itong ginagawa ko.
"Kami-kami din namang magpapamilya ang makikinabang dito, at saka katuparan din ito ng pangarap namin na umasenso kami. Para sa inyo ’to…”
In her white Rajo Laurel gown, Sarah belted out a powerful rendition of Celine Dion’s “To Love You More,” to the delight of the Cuneta Astrodome crowd. The text votes poured in.
At 13 years old, Sarah became the first “champion” of the singing contest.
With the prize money, the Geronimos were able to pay off their debts—the unpaid bigas, the tuition fees, the medical bills.
“Doon namin nakita iyong parang talagang ’tinakda ng Diyos,” says Divine. “Parang ’binigay Niya.”
In the years that followed, Sarah worked even harder, became even more successful, and gave her entire family the kind of life they could only wish for. She had made good on her promise.
Her father had retired. She had sent all her siblings to school. Her mother can attend to the whole family. Just recently, Divine brought Jonah to New York to study culinary arts, specializing in pastries.
But because of the poverty that was once the family’s lot, and because she turned to God thoughout the years when things seemed hopeless, Divine is unshakeable in her faith, her belief in God’s word—or her interpretation of it.
That interpretation includes keeping men out of the scene in her daughters’ lives.
This holds true even for her oldest daughter Jonah, now 25, and most especially for her youngest daughter, Sarah, who will turn 23 in July. They are not ready, Divine says firmly.
Asked when they will be ready, she says only God will tell.
UPDATE: Today Sarah is 31, but it seems that her Mommy Divine still does not think she is ready for a man.