19 hours Ago
I n the world of celebrity interviews, you learn to read between the lines. The best answers aren’t always spoken — they’re felt. They live in the pauses, in the stumbles, in the shifts in tone or in the tension in the body.
I’ve learned to listen not just with my ears, but with my eyes. That’s why I’ll remember this moment with David Licauco. We were in the middle of our one-on-one for GMA Integrated News.
David sat across from me the way you’d expect the “Pambansang Ginoo” to be: collected, polite, poised. But when the conversation shifted to Barda’s other half — Barbie Forteza—something in him changed. It was subtle at first.
A pause before speaking. A slight tightening in his jaw. But then I noticed something more telling.
He started tapping his foot. Not nervously like someone unsure of what to say, but tensely like someone trying to keep something grounded beneath the weight of emotion. I asked him about Barbie, about the real nature of their bond, on- and off-screen.
David didn’t flinch, but his foot kept tapping, even as he tried to speak with clarity and care. “We have to think na — of course, Barbie just got off from a relationship and we should respect that,” he said. “Kailangan niyang mag-heal.
” A nd there it was, that quiet kind of caring. Not the grand, dramatic kind. The sort that gives space.
The kind that knows timing is everything. He admits Barbie being single has lifted a layer of awkwardness that had always hovered between them. “Nag-evolve na yung dynamics ninyo?” I asked.
“Sure, before, like, transparently, she was taken, 'di ba?” “So malaking factor yun?” “Hindi naman, I mean, Barbie has always been caring. But then, syempre, kapag—” “Naiilang ka before?” “Oo, 'di ba? Parang caring. Kasi syempre, kapag may ka-work ka, di ba? Like, kailangan naman talaga, especially sa love-themed context.
You have to be caring and Barbie is someone I really care about.” “So, would you say, mas maluwag na ngayon 'yung pakikisama ninyo sa isa't isa? Now that single ka, single siya?” “The question, right?” He joked. “Again, I mean, feel ko kahit naman sino na nasa situation ko, kapag taken, hindi ka naman gagawa ng medyo extra, extra care.
But now, obviously, when we're together, I care for her. And ayun, syempre, mas maluwag nga, gaya na sinabi mo.” I asked him to qualify the caring he has for Barbie.
"I care for her a lot," he said before: "I just really care about her a lot." As if he had to say it twice to make sure it landed. Here, we had to pause the interview a bit because there was so much kilig in the room.
T he words themselves were simple. But when someone repeats a line like that, you don’t question the truth of it. Especially when you feel it.
You hear it between the syllables, in the breath between phrases, in the foot that won’t keep still. It reminded me of something I don’t get to talk about often enough: The tenderness men are sometimes afraid to show. David wasn’t just answering my questions.
He was holding a boundary, honoring Barbie’s healing, and still being brave enough to say: I care. A lot. That’s something deeper.
That’s caring on a whole new level. In a world obsessed with loud declarations and viral confessions, here is a man showing up with something far more rare: grace. Not the performative kind, but the kind that holds space for someone else’s timeline.
As David’s foot finally stilled, I realized I was witnessing the making of a man. True to his moniker, he is one true Ginoo. — LA, GMA Integrated News.
