The Senate President’s Heart; the Police General’s Rose
The Senate President and the chief of the Philippine National Police are powered by a Heart and a Rose.
Aside from love of country and duty, these men obviously find inspiration in their wives: Senate President Chiz Escudero’s Heart and PNP Chief P/Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil’s Rose.
Both couples are on the cover of PeopleAsia magazine this month and are poster couples for power, purpose, and passion.
Though they walk corridors of power, both men are powerfully gentle to their spouses and children. Chiz has 16-year-old twins Chesi and Quino, while Gen. Marbil has unica hija Robyn, 26.
Chiz and Heart arrived promptly at 8 a.m. for their PeopleAsia shoot at the Hotel Okura Manila, already camera-ready.
They are 15 (sometimes 16) years apart and yet seem so attuned to each other.
“I don’t stop her from doing anything. She doesn’t stop me from doing anything, too,” Chiz said at the sidelines of the photo shoot, looking dapper in his Michael Leyva barong and suit.
When contributing writer Ivy Lisa Mendoza asked him about his reaction when Heart revealed earlier this year the loss of their unborn baby, FrancisKo, Chiz said, “Baligtad kami, eh. Siya, she needs to put it out there. Ako, I don’t. I guess we have different ways of coping, which is in a way good—kesa sa parehas kaming emotional. My way of coping is different from hers.”
Heart, also in a Michael Leyva, retold to us their love story, a match made on earth by the late Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago.
“She said she didn’t want me to date anybody in showbiz anymore, no more models. She said I should be with somebody who’s serious with life, and so she gave me a list. And then the first one on the list was Chiz. I told her that I’ve always had a crush on Chiz, ever since before. I would watch his commercial, watch his speech. But of course, he was, you know, attached (at the time). But I was a fan.”
The feisty matchmaker Miriam did her own sleuthing.
“Let me check if Chiz is alone,” Heart remembers her saying.
“And then I never got to the second person on the list. Because I really liked Chiz,” Heart shares.
They hit it off right away after a date in Aberdeen Court in Quezon City.
“Tita Miriam was like, ‘You haven’t even gone to the second name’?” Heart laughs.
There were a good 10 names on the list, recalls Heart.
“It’s so funny. I never answered even the other calls anymore after that,” she says.
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Rommel and Rose Marbil were high school classmates at the Paco Catholic School.
Aside from her support for his career—and his support for hers—and her acceptance of the risks and dangers that go with his being a police officer, Rose is so like her husband in their love for dogs. They have a farm in Batangas where they give their rescue dogs a home and a haven.
The dogs are so much a part of the Marbil home, one of them even gave birth on their bed!
The Marbils are also deeply religious. Gen. Marbil is a Padre Pio devotee, and a devotee of the Simala Shrine, which is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, in Sibonga, Cebu. A painting of the shrine is a focal point of their dining room.
The Marbil family of three is actually in the painting, too.
Gen. Marbil told PeopleAsia that he had welcomed a blood-stained Padre Pio relic in his home from Feb. 7 to April 2. Around this time, whispers of his upcoming appointment were already making the rounds, to the point that it was all but confirmed.
On April 1—a day before he was to return the relic—the office called him to attend a retirement ceremony, not a turnover ceremony that traditionally marks the tenure of an incoming chief.
“Before I left my house, I told St. Padre Pio, I know it will be a miracle if a turnover happened today, but guess what? I believe in miracles,” he told us.
Indeed. Indeed. He assumed the top post of the PNP that very same day.
Gen. Marbil also talked in length of President Marcos’ marching orders to the police force, which is to “value human lives.”
“War is not the answer. Rather, it’s the continuous work of the police force and our adaptability to crime and the level in which these criminals evolve and adapt to our operations,” Gen. Marbil revealed to PeopleAsia managing editor Jose Paolo dela Cruz.
The general’s wife, Rose, an executive in a telecommunications firm, and daughter Robyn, also shared a rare glimpse of the man behind the uniform. “My fondest memory would always be the three of us in the living room, as Dad does his crazy dance, usually to Happy by Square Heads,” says his daughter.
The Escuderos and the Marbils are examples of hard work and realized dreams, and the power of outside help—from Earth and Above.