sexy chums

Biography
Young actress Angelica David Panganiban says she is the only daughter of Annabell Panganiban and a father she didn’t know by name. “Maybe I knew his name when I was a child but I’ve forgotten it now,” she says. She has no memories of her father either. “Only a picture,” she says. And she doesn’t miss him. “I never grew up with a father,” she adds. “Had I felt his presence then, I could have missed him today.”

In her childhood, Angelica had thought that her grandfather, Alfredo Panganiban, was her father, until her playmates set her aright. “I was playing in a playmate’s house and told the rest that my daddy was coming home soon with plenty of pasalubong (gifts).’ But they told me, ‘He’s not your daddy, he’s your lolo. You don’t have a daddy…’ I didn’t cry. It wasn’t an issue for me; I was too young then.”

The only time she wished her father was around, Angelica says, was two years ago, when she celebrated her debut. “He could have been my first dance,” she says wistfully. Her Lolo Alfredo graciously did the honor.

Amazingly, no one has yet come forward to claim paternity of this young actress who starred in such movies as “Antipolo Massacre,” her first film, “Separada” (where she won a Famas for Best Child Actress), and “Santa Santita.”All she knows about him, says Angelica, is that her parents had separated when she was two. He was crazy (baliw), her mother had told her.

It was no big deal, she recalls. In grade school, Angelica remembers having a group of friends called “barkadahang walang ama” (friends without fathers). “All my friends’ parents were separated. Their stories were worse than mine. One’s father was said to have been ran over by a train. Another said her mother chopped off her father’s head, and so on.”

Only recently did her mother started telling her the truth, but piecemeal. “My parents separated, he’s now settled in Guam and has another family.” That’s all she knows and that’s how far she’ll go answering any more queries about her family.