Rumor has it the biggest romantic plot twist that made collective jaws drop was Donny Pangilinan allegedly courting the very good girl Kathryn Bernardo. And Donny’s elder sister Ella comes to the defense of her brother with, “They can make news out of chismis (gossip) stories that are entirely untrue,” only added more fuel to the fire. Young master Pangilinan chose the “silence is my best defense” and perhaps the rumors will not stop until you hear Belle, or the bell, rather.

The real deal here is that Donny’s love pairing with Belle Mariano is all for show. And the lovey-dovey and kilig antics they share are all for promo. The artifice of it all was no match to the purity and realness of the SnoRene tandem, which is why the surprise love team of Anthony Jennings and Maris Racal stole the thunder from the Bingo and Caroline story arc.

Romance and feelings can be acted out, but if one is faking it, the consequences are always dire. I said it once and I will say it again, the best partner for the pretty Belle is Jeremiah Lisbo. Check out the movies of Mariano and Lisbo before DonBelle happened, and how Jeremiah being the third angle in their online show added more sizzle and spice to the yawn-inducing Pangilinan and Mariano reel pairing.

The heat is indeed on in Manila and let’s chill with some good reading, especially to the Gen Zs and millennials out there. Read the novels, short stories, essays and poems of our Filipino literary greats first, before you even attempt to be well-versed with F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemmingway and their Latin American counterparts Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende and Mario Vargas Llosa.

And please, while you do your reading, make sure you have a dictionary within your reach so that you can quickly find the meanings of the words that you do not understand, and if they are nouns, verbs, and adjectives. That’s all.