Aubrey Miles and Magdalo Soldiers in One Roof

Candidly if I will write this as usual business news, only a bit would probably be interested to read this in full.

It is the likely tendency because media itself especially the publications that doesn’t dealt mainly with business and financial trends have relegated the business section in its inside pages but if I would say that two former Magdalo soldiers were around and had meet Movie/TV actress Aubrey Miles in the opening of a cart business inside the E-Mall department store I am sure it would somewhat invite attention.

They were literally in one roof so I will take you there and perhaps call this piece also as showbiz-business story with a Magdalo twist because the fact that former army Captains Nerelito Pascual, Jr. and Alvin Ebreo were around during the event is really news worthy to say the least.

At the outset I thought then it would just be a routine business story coverage but it wasn’t upon assessing on the interesting angle that may captivate one’s yearning for valuable story.

Really, any rookie journalist would have just focus on the business related slant but modesty aside in my several years of journalism experience, my editor would surely lashed me that I had let go of a “scoop” if I ignored the presence of the Magdalo soldiers. In the journalism profession, missing a scoop is a cardinal sin.

The keyword is Magdalo and as consequence figuring in the “Oakwood mutiny” saga that called for reforms and allegedly attempted to overthrow the administration of former Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Getting their share of poetic justice maybe, Arroyo who is now a congresswoman, is under hospital arrest for plunder and election sabotage charges. On the other hand three of their fellow Magdalo soldiers, classmates in the Philippine Military Academy (PMA 1995) Marilag class won elective seats, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV along with Cong. Ashley Acedillo and Cong. Gary Alejano who succeeded in becoming party list lawmakers which bear their group’s name itself, Magdalo.

Fast forward last Saturday afternoon; Pascual Jr. and Ebreo, two other Magdalo soldiers meet again when the Sweetcorner business franchise of Pascual’s wife Ma. Teresa and business partner Pauline Quinones-Catubig opened in the E-mall foodcourt.

Actress Aubrey Miles cuts the ribbon of the Sweetcorner E-mall franchise last July 19. She is joined by franchisees Ma. Teresa Pascual (right) and her partner Pauline Catubig. (MCN photo by Tonton Antogop)

I know Pascual Jr. years back as his father was a professor in my college days and he introduced me to Ebreo before Aubrey Miles arrived for the “ribbon cutting” of their business franchise.

After our pleasantries I learned then in the course of our conversation that Ebreo recently passed the Bar exams and hence now a lawyer and further in our interaction, I got from Atty. Ebreo that he is pursuing an active role as “preacher” of the Living World Christian Church.

He said that he finds ultimate contentment in what he does to which I agree in the sidelines when the beauteous Aubrey Miles was already busy taking photographs with the throng of mall shoppers that trooped to the food cart business where Aubrey is the official celebrity endorser.

Ebreo and his equally pretty wife Daisy posed with Aubrey earlier and they both said that they were there to give morale support on the business endeavor of the Pascuals.

“Were here to support them, and this is definitely a good business,” Ebreo said who kidded that if ever I will surf the net to validate this story, I would surely encounter the term “mutiny” tagged to his name.

Indeed, it is because he has been granted pardon for coup d’etat conviction but to him that was the turning point of his life because mainstream soldiery would have led him somewhere else.

“Right now in preaching the word of God, I find meaning and real purpose in life, ” Ebreo empathically told Metrocebu News.

For Pascual Jr, the challenge that he has been into, is somewhat relevant to soldiery also being the de-facto “battalion commander” of Energy Development Corporation (EDC) in Leyte as he is the firm’s internal security chief which supervises hundreds of company guards, two platoons of Cafgus (CAA) and a military detachment in its facility.

He said he is fully supporting his wife’s business whom he met when he was still studying at the University of San Carlos before he entered the Baguio City based PMA.

“I am just here for support and off hand I like Sweetcorner because it is a food business which is good for the health,” Pascual said, himself a health buff.

Ma. Teresa earned a business management degree and as her business partner Catubig would have it, “a very passionate businesswoman who would really put her heart into it once she has started.”

Their franchise would have another one soon once SM Seaside City would open at the SRP and whether Aubrey Miles would still be around and the Magdalo soldiers is worth the wait.

Perhaps that would be more interesting and would require another business story with a Magdalo twist and Oh!, by the way, since people would surely flock there because the SM Seaside City is being packaged as the fourth largest mall in the world, Miss Aubrey Miles will have his hands full in endorsing “Sweetcorner.”

Therefore for the record, probably the very first in the franchising business in the Philippines where a celebrity endorser and two Magdalo soldiers met in one roof. A story then that perhaps an editor would agree to be worth writing and probably worth reading and Sweetcorner franchise top guys Voltaire and Cholly Magpayo somehow would be grinning in approval.