When Royette’s casket was laid to the ground, Eva’s maternal love remained overflowing.
It was a scene not taken out from the movies or teleseryes but real life.
Eva Cariño —mom of film and television actors Rommel and Robin Padilla and BB Gandanghari, the former Rustom Padilla— was tearful minutes before her son Royette Padilla’s remains were brought out from the Manila Memorial Park chapel to be buried.
According to veteran entertainment journalist Alice Vergara, who was present at the wake, Eva almost fainted. Her relatives quickly came to her side.
“Mahal na mahal ni Eva ang kanyang anak na si Royette at kahit na sino sa kanyang mga anak (Eva loved her son Royette and all his children),” observed Alice who has been a living witness to practically all celebrities in the local entertainment industry since the early 1960s.
Maternal Love
Although in health care protocols like wearing masks, face shields, applying sanitizers and alcohols and maintaining physical or social distancing amid the COVID-19 pandemic and its UK variant were enforced, tears among the Padillas’ eyes couldn’t be concealed.
When Royette’s casket was laid to the ground, Eva’s maternal love remained overflowing.
She was comforted by two other sons, Robin and Rommel.
BB, obviously, couldn’t be in the occasion because she is now based in the US and couldn’t easily go home because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Airflight is restricted.
Royette succumbed to cardiac arrest.
He was 58.