Cherry Pie Picache confirms split with Edu Manzano

Cherry Pie Picache (right) with son, Nio —CHERRY PIE PICACHE/INSTAGRAM

Actress Cherry Pie Picache admitted that while it was not easy, she has definitely moved on from her recent breakup with Edu Manzano.

The couple, who first dated some 20 years ago, rekindled their relationship in 2021 while working on the rom-com series “Marry Me, Marry You.” In May, Cherry Pie’s followers started noticing that the actress was no longer posting pictures of her with Edu on her Instagram account.

On Tuesday night, at the press conference of Zig Dulay’s “Firefly,” Cherry Pie finally admitted to the split. When reporters asked her to describe the kind of Christmas she would have—whether or not it’d be cold and lonely or warm—the actress replied: “At my age now, I’ve already learned that I cannot depend on someone else for my own happiness. Besides, I also have to be whole or complete before I love somebody again.”

Of her ex-beau, she said,’ “We’re very good friends. He’s a good person. We will always love each other. Our friendship is OK.”

The actress also claimed that she is open to finding a new love. “Of course! Why not? But while there’s none, I have to learn to be happy on my own. Especially after the pandemic, we’ve learned so much about self-love, that we can’t define our happiness and self-worth based on other people’s standards—they have to be based on ours,” she pointed out.

Blessings

“Personally, I can’t complain. God has been good to me. He has been showering me with so much blessings,” she continued. “The pandemic has taught all of us to just love each other and help each other out. Today, with or without a partner, I have to be OK. I’m grateful for everything, but if you’re going to ask me if it was easy to move on, of course it wasn’t. But, yes, I have moved on.”

Being part of the cast of “Firefly” was also something that Cherry Pie said she is grateful for. “The script is very beautiful. I’m glad that Direk Zig asked me to join the cast even if mine is just a supporting role. It’s my first time working with him, but we’ve long been friends. We see each other often because we’re from the same circle—we’ve both done a lot of indie films. He knows that I have great respect for him and his work.”

She continued: “My role isn’t big, but it doesn’t matter to me. I always say, I accept projects depending on the story concept, the script, and the people I work with. I’m grateful to Direk and the production team for having me.”

Set in the ’90s, “Firefly” is told from the perspective of a grown-up, Tonton (Dingdong Dantes), who reminisces about his childhood. A 10-year-old Tonton (Eewenn Mikael) goes on a journey to search for the Island of Fireflies, a mystical place he first learned from his mother Elay (Alessandra de Rossi), who loved reading bedtime stories to him.

“When you watch the film, you will see the lesson that the mother is trying to teach her son. I always tell my son, ‘Buntot mo, hila mo.’ This means that whatever you do—your decisions, your behavior, your actions are all yours. They’re your responsibility. You have to be accountable for them. I remind Nio of this phrase all the time because it encompasses everything, including one’s integrity, empathy and kindness. You cannot blame other people for your actions.”

Collaboration

Cherry Pie also said she was glad to finally have the opportunity to work with the people of GMA Films, who are responsible for the production of “Firefly.”

“Actors like me can be flexible. We can work for any production, especially these days when everyone is collaborating. We can do anything now. We’re only starting to recover from the pandemic lockdowns so we actors will go where work takes us,” she pointed out.

“The GMA people took care of us well. They were welcoming and very warm. It was hard to adjust in the beginning, especially since I didn’t know a lot of the people there. When I work, it’s important to me that I have an established relationship with the people around me. I’ve worked with ABS-CBN for a long time, so I treat most of them as family. I didn’t know anyone from GMA Public affairs, but they were all so warm to me.”

Cherry Pie was then asked for her reaction to the recent passing of Ronaldo Valdez, whom she also treated as family. “If there’s a senior actor I can say I got close to, Tito Ron was one of them,” she said. “Recently, some colleagues and I were talking about him and his actor batchmates. We said that these days, it’s already hard to find senior actors of his caliber. I was really saddened by the news of his death.”

She said it’s a fact that, soon enough, her batch would be considered the “senior” ones in the industry. “There’s nowhere else to go. All of us will mature eventually. The younger actresses, like Alessandra, who is in her 30s, are now playing mother roles. How much more for actresses like me who are in our 50s? I really think it’s now hard to find actors from Tito Ron’s batch who are still active—there’s Tito Dante (Rivero) and Tita Gina (Pareño). Paano na?”

“Firefly,” written by Angeli Atienza, will be screened in cinemas nationwide alongside nine other MMFF entries from Christmas Day up to Jan. 7.