Mikee Cojuangco on love, politics & crazy horses
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| Mikee Cojuangco: Growing up privileged, Mikee was never indifferent to the plight of others — or the glamour of show business. After being injured and she couldn’t ride for a year, she turned to acting. “I totally enjoyed everything I was doing.” |
She was been away from the limelight
for quite some time, but still very active with her advocacies and still as
beautiful as ever. I catch up with a multi-talented woman who became Manila’s “it” girl even
before we started using the term. Here are 10 things you should know about
Mikee Cojuango-Jaworski.
1 Despite her parents Pepito and Tingting Cojuangco being in politics,
Mikee’s dad actually did not want her to run for SK when she was 18.
“He said if I joined SK, I wouldn’t
be as happy as I could be, that I would get stuck. I saw it myself,” she
recalls. “My final straw with SK was when I offered a couple of co-SK officials
a personal loan as a start-up capital for a small business. I had my Swatch
money then. But I was told that if I wasn’t going to give it as a ‘donation,’
to just keep my money. So I did! I remember my dad telling me, ‘If you feel you
are getting something out of it, personally, then get out. Public service is a
sacrifice.’
“The first time that I realized that
there was a difference between my life and other kids’ was, I don’t remember
what grade I was, but one of the questions in Social Studies was, ‘Saan mas
masarap ang buhay, sa probinsya o sa ciudad?’
I kept insisting ‘sa probinsya.’ The
teacher kept saying that the amenities are not available in the province. But I
was thinking, ‘Yes, they are!’ Ano lang naman yung amenities at that time,
aircon, TV. I went home and told my parents what we talked about in school. And
there was something different about the way they looked at each other and
smiled. It wasn’t much later that I realized, ah, okay, I know na why, it is
different,” she shares.
Mikee says that even if she grew up
privileged, she wasn’t indifferent to the realities of how other Pinoys really
lived. She recalls her mom always taking them on different provincial trips
(“yung maliligo ka in those banyos outside the house where the toilets are”)
and her dad always sat her down to talk. “My dad was always telling me, ‘You
know, you are so blessed. From the time you were born and until the time you
die, hopefully you’re never going to have to worry about your next meal.’ And I
used to wonder, ‘What’s this about a next meal?’ I was eight when he first gave
me that talk. He would say, ‘There’s nothing that you need that you don’t have,
so you have to find a way to be a blessing to others because not everybody is
like you.’ Up to now, same talk,” she says with a laugh.
2 Mikee is the middle child among five girls and admits, “I spent more
time with my teammates than I ever did with my sisters.”
“All of us are so different.
Personally, I never really felt the competition or even the comparison. Of
course you’ll hear, ‘Ay, mas maganda si ganyan,’ which for us was more, ‘Ha-ha!
Mas maganda daw ako!’” She says she and sisters Liaa, Pin, Mai Mai, and China were not
really close growing up (“No sharing of boy stories even”), but points out,
“Now we are so close.”
“My two older sisters had a lot to
do with us growing up, because our parents were busy. So they called it their
revenge. They were super strict! What time you have to be home, how you talk,
the words you use, everything. They would say, ‘Sit up straight! Eat properly!
Do your homework!’” she mimics. Meanwhile she, Mai Mai and China were
“magkakampi and magkaaway.” “Usually China and I were magkakampi so we
would cut the hair of Mai Mai’s Barbies or take the heads off,” she laughs. “It
was my ate Liaa that encouraged me to make the Asian Games a goal, then it was
my ate Pin naman who would dress me up or choose what I was gonna wear because
I never owned anything to go out.”
3 As a high school student in CSA, she balanced her studies (“There was
no special treatment”), training, plus she was in the student council.
“I get to the riding school, I wait
for the sun, mga 5 a.m. School would start before eight. After school, there
were student council meetings. Then I would just go back again after school.
Basta I get home mga 8:30.” When asked if she ever felt balancing it all got
too difficult, she says, “Never. Ever.”
She shares she got to enjoy school
life just like any other student. “I really didn’t feel like I missed out
because of my sport because my dad probably wouldn’t have let me go out anyway.
I remember though one time, I was in second year high school and he grounded
me. I went to the house with my classmates and asked if we could watch a movie.
‘Okay, be home by 10.’ Eh it was 7:30 p.m. I was the only one with a car. We
all went to the movie house, and by 9:30 I was telling them, ‘C’mon we have to
go!’ Because I was still going to drop them off. So we left without finishing
the movie, of course they were so inis with me. I got home at 12 past 10. He
grounded me for two months. I said sorry and I said, ‘Okay. I mean, come on,
the last time I asked if I could go out was probably four months ago! So it’s
not really a big deal,’” she laughs. “He didn’t ground me from training
anyway.”
4 During the height of her acting career, she was being pitted against
Judy Ann Santos. “I just thought, are you serious? Juday? Me versus Juday? It’s
Juday!
“From the time (the Swatch
commercial) aired, I was getting movie offers. It was not something I was
considering because I didn’t have time. There was no way I was gonna give up
school or riding, so I would just say no. Then I got injured when I was 19 and I
couldn’t ride for a year. After all those years, suddenly I had free time and I
didn’t know how to handle it! ‘Okay, let’s do this,’” she shares.
“I totally enjoyed everything I was
doing. The lifestyle was so ideal for me because I wasn’t really a social
person. I could be home three months shooting a movie and taping for my show,
and gone another three months training and competing.
“What other job was gonna allow me
to do that? And earn what I needed to support my sport? I always say that I
never made all of these plans, but obviously God made them for me. One thing I
learned from my mom is when an opportunity comes, grab it. If you don’t like
it, get out of it. If you like it, buti na lang you tried.”
5 The one moment in her life that she felt most self-conscious was when
she sang at the birthday special of Sonny Jaworski at the Araneta Coliseum.
“We were recording the song and I
told my vocal coach, ‘No, no, no, it has to be really perfect, it has to be the
best I’ve ever sung. It’s my boyfriend’s dad!’ We spent a couple of hours
recording,” she recalls. Mikee stands up to reenact the moment. “I remember
standing there, singing lip sync and performing, and I went to do this to my
hand (reaches her hand out) and it started shaking! ‘What’s happening!?’ When I
was done, I was looking around, it felt like ages standing there looking like a
fool! And I just walked off the stage,” she laughs.
When asked how it was when she first
met the Big J, she says, “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, he is such a nice person.’
I was at their house and we were on our way out. It was late afternoon and
someone opened the gate, it was him. He opened the gate himself, got back into
his car, drove it in. It was so... normal!”
She met her husband Dodot through
common friends Vince Hizon and Toni Leviste who were dating at that time. “It
took months for Toni to convince me. I had been set up with so many people that
I felt, I’m tired na. I’d rather do other things than be set up again.” She
eventually said yes to the set-up, they ended up hanging out with a group of
friends, then just the two of them; then after a while, they got together. “I
do remember, one time he was sick and I sent him oranges in a bayong. He always
teases me that I made him ligaw, and for me, why would he think that I like him
just because I sent him oranges? I would tell him, ‘What? Because of that you
thought I liked you? Baduy mo!’ I didn’t want to say na lang kasi I was given a
lot and baka mabulok,” she recalls. “Baka nga akala niya niligawan ko siya!” Two
years after meeting each other, Dodot and Mikee got married.
6 On what kind of woman she thinks would be perfect for her cousin
P-Noy: “She has to have a strong personality. Even if she’s going to pretend to
be submissive, she needs to be strong.
“He is palabiro especially with me.
He would ask, ‘Ano, okay ba? Kasi pag sinabi mong ayaw mo, ayoko na rin,’ he
would joke around with me. I remember one time I teased him, ‘Kuya Noy, ano ba,
tatlo na anak ko!’ And he said, ‘Basta pag meron na talaga, tapos yun na talaga
yun, I will seek you out para ipakilala ko sa iyo.’ The girls that I’ve met that he has gone out
with have not been that different from each other, they’re nice, intelligent
and classy. But who wouldn’t want that? Maybe what he needs is not that,” she
laughs. “Maybe he just needs time to actually go out on dates. It’s not an easy
time for him to find someone.”
On reading P-Noy basher posts on
social media: “Of course it affects me. I try to remind myself that out of two
bashers, there are 10 lovers or likers or admirers.”
7 Dodot originally wanted him and Mikee to have 12 children.
They have three boys, Rob, 14, Raf,
12, and Renzo, 5. “In the beginning, when we got married, he was saying he
wanted 12 kids. He was actually serious! Then the first was born, then you
know, milk, diapers, all that. Then it became, ‘Ah, 10 na lang.’ ‘Okay,
whatever,’” she laughs. “Then Raf was born. That’s double the milk and diapers.
Okay, eight na lang. Tapos nag-aral na. Every time reality set in, there was a
change of point of view. So naging four na lang. We were planning to have two,
then have a break, then two again. But when Renzo was born, we just got so busy
and all of a sudden, now he’s five! Now Robbie is almost in high school, so
okay, three na lang. Life happens, you know?”
She and Dodot agreed to one rule
when it comes to raising their kids: “Let’s not make contra each other in front
of them.”
8 The one lesson she learned from the toughest time of her life: “You
can only just do your best. You cannot please everybody no matter what you do.
“There was a personal side to it, a
legal side to it, it involved my sport, my passion, my family, everything dear
to me. God has always been so good to me that whenever something is not right
in one aspect of my life, there is something that is. When all of that was
happening, it was a stressful period, but it was the personal side that made it
really difficult,” she shares. “God opened up so many things for me from that
painful experience. That bad experience of having to deal with it and having to
overcome it apparently became one of the things that the IOC (International
Olympic Committee) liked about me. Because I have experience in conflict
resolution related to sports.” (Last year, Mikee was elected into the IOC as a
representative to the Philippines,
only the third Filipino with that honor.)
9 Mikee Cojuangco in numbers:
17: Age when her Swatch commercial
aired.
3: Number of major medals won. An
individual gold and a team silver at the 2002 Asian Games, and a team gold at
the 2005 SEA Games.
6: Number of surgeries she’s had.
Three were sports related, and the other three were the C-sections for her
kids.
8: Number of hours a day she trained
at the peak of her riding career. “Now when I train, maybe one and a half
hours.”
12: Number of horses owned. “My dad
has this philosophy that I wouldn’t be a real rider if I didn’t know how to
ride the untrained ones. So he always gave me these racehorses. When I fell off
one of them and I already had Robbie, my coach stormed into my dad’s house and
said, ‘This is it, this is the last one! You are not giving her another crazy
horse! She has a child, Peping!’ That was the last,” she laughs.
10 She admits she has no secret to looking “forever young.” For that,
she thanks her parents who both have good skin, and shares she is “quite low
maintenance.”
Turning 40 this year, what message
would Mikee give her 50-year-old self? “Life truly begins at 40! You’re only 10
years old, you have a long way to go.”
On what advice she would give her
30-year-old self: “This actually happened all the time throughout my life. But
30 being the year that Dot ran for office, my mindset being that I would be the
wife of a congressman, I would say, ‘Life doesn’t always turn out how you plan
it, but it always turns out better.’”
* * *
Before, during, and after our
interview in her lovely home, Mikee made coffee for us both, checked on her son
Renzo who was playing with their dogs, took a phone call from husband Dodot,
then son Robbie, then another from mom Tingting, consoled Renzo when he came
crying after falling, welcomed home son Raf, chit-chatted a bit more when the
recorder was put away, and even escorted me outside the gate when I left.
Obviously more than content and fulfilled with her career and her time in the
spotlight, she now relishes life simply as a mother, wife and advocate. “Yes, I
do have everything,” she once said in an interview with Boy Abunda. I saw for
myself that not only is that true, but that with the right mindset, it is
possible for any of us too.
