Still At Risk!

Pedro to me in tonite's dramedy of the gardener's daughter (la hija del jardinero), was a pathetic fellow whose weakness has been transformed into a shackle of captivity over his beloved 'daughter' L.F. This lesson I learnt from Snippet 106 and Snippet 107.

Confronted by the truth of L.F being the sole heiress to the Alcantara fortune, this, permit me to call him a life-long loser, was afraid of L.F knowing about the fortune, because in doing so, she would also know about Luis Alejandro being her biological father.

For this reason, Pedro said he did not care about the fortune, (even though, he was in dire financial needs), if that would shroud the paternity of L.A from the unfortunate girl. My prayers from this lesson is that: God save and deliver me from the selfishness of my lovers, O lord, deliver me from those who genuinely wanted to protect me, but for their selfish motives.

Pedro truly loved L.F to the point of obsession, seeing her as a baby-toy in his hands, to determine her destiny and pattern it after his own that was full of hurting secrets and hideous shames.

I was ashamed to see sister Joaquina as Pedro's hypocritical accomplice in this hideous 'crime'. It was totally unacceptable to me for a Nun to partake in these 'holy' lies. Even when L.F confronted them to ask what L.A came to do in her house, these two hypocrites slyly avoided her query and were laboring to divert her attention with other matters.

Like I always say, The gardener's daughter should have rounded up at episode 110 and not 180. Tonite's episode confirmed that the script writers just wanted to unnecessarily prolong the telenovela.

There was no reason in the world to prevent Vanessa from telling the truth to L.F when she rushed to her floral shop for that purpose. there was no reason again for Don Fernando Alcantara to fall sick again or suffer brain hemorrhage.

It has become boring and nauseating from this deliberate elongation from Episode 106. The remaining 70 or so episodes, are nothing but embellishments which could have been compressed to ten extra episodes.

Adieu, Sidney Sheldon

The master story-teller is gone! A shinning star dims irretrievably into the oblivion, the man born with a pen in his mouth bided the world farewell a few hours ago , this Tuesday night, from Los Angeles, California, to the great beyond.

At the ripe old and fulfilled age of 89, any thing could have happened, they said it was pneumonia, it could as well have been due to the traditional "brief illness". Sidney Sheldon through his incessantly flowing pen gave me courage and hope even from a tender age of ten, some 31 years ago. He sharpened my character and outlook when I was but a teenager. I doff my hat in salutation for this best-selling author and mentor. Thriving by the power of imagination, he held the entertainment world, spell-bound for over half of a century.

With an unparalleled achievement on STAGE, SCREEN, TV and even paperback novels, the world of entertainment owe him an eternal debt.

Long before the advent of Telenovelas, he paved the way for attention-grabbing and mind-gripping, 1,500-page, robust novels, that were never boring or tiresome until you get to the end. Thank you Sidney!

Some of his best-selling evergreen novels include: "Bloodline", "Rage of Angels", "The Other Side of Midnight", "Master of the Game" and "If Tomorrow Comes". He was once quoted as saying that, he liked to write about women who were "talented and capable."

Countless number of his works became the precursor of what we call telenovelas today. Telemovie mini serials were carved out of his many novels and many popular Hollywood actors today, rose to fame and stardom as a result of his good script-writing and story-lines which they acted. He was a movie producer of many works.

At a tender age 10, he had begun his budding writing career, selling his first major work- a poem for $10 and by age 17, hardworking Sidney had become a Script editor for Universal Studios, on a weekly wage of $22 and was able to still squeeze out extra time in the night seasons, to write his first novel whose rights he sold for $250 dollars cash.

His greatest possession in life was his pen and notepad. Legend was told about when fire gutted his home in California years back, he left all his prestigious awards OSCAR, EMMYS and TONYS and went for his pen and notepad, before running out of the house. A World War II hero of the American Air Force. He has sold over 300 million copies of his novels, translated in over 50 languages.