Dad we Love: RJ Ledesma

How you know RJ Ledesma depends entirely on where you’ve seen him or read about him. To some, he’s the young lad Joey whose teenage life was chronicled with a series of TV commercials for a soft drink brand back in 1988. To others, he’s that funny guy who has a column in the Philippine Star every Wednesday, called “Pogi from a Parallel Universe”, talking animatedly about the biology behind sexuality and human relationships. To others, he’s the guy who hosts weddings or debuts, and to some, he’s one of the guys behind Mercato Centrale at the Fort.

Well, he’s all that – and more. On top of all these, RJ is also a father to a beautiful three-year-old daughter, Fortune (named after his mom), and a devoted husband to his loving wife, Vanessa, who is eight months pregnant with their second child. 

When we visited his lovely home a few weeks ago, we saw for ourselves just how busy this man is. He comes in from a meeting, takes several calls, creates posts for his five Twitter accounts, answers some e-mails, all while serving us pastries and Bukidnon coffee from Mercato Centrale, regaling us with anecdotes and playing with his daughter. In the middle of our interview, one of his assistants advises him that he was due for another interview that same night. 

While we try to take in everything that was going on, we realize that this, in fact, is just a regular day in RJ’s life. To the observer, it can all be rather frantic to manage, yet RJ moves about his tasks with ease and an amazing sense of calm.

“First of all, I really have a lot of different jobs - eight different jobs,” explains RJ. “I’m a real estate developer by profession, and by graduate school training, I’m an entrepreneur. I put up Mercato Centrale with Soderno. I’m a host for events, for weddings, for press launches, for different things. I’m a TV host for GMA News TV’s “Best Men”. I write for the Philippine Star. Those are the key things. (On the side) I’m (also) the honorary vice-consul of Monaco to the Philippines (My mom’s the consul general of Monaco). I’m a book author, but it really comes from the columns – it’s a compilation of the columns. I’m (also) certified to teach yoga ("erstwhile yoga practitioner").” 

 

[previous|page|next]

 

Raised to Excel

 RJ admits that his upbringing helped shape him to become the efficient multitasker that he is today. “When I was younger, I was really trained to multitask, to do different things, so I carried the attitude up to when I got older,” he says. “I’m the eldest [of three siblings], and since you’re the experimental child, they kind of pushed me a lot when I was a child. Lahat. Pinag-elocution ako, pina-sports ako. I was doing Repertory Philippines, I did Junior Newswatch with Channel 9 [and] my mom made me play baseball. They really made me do so many different things.”

The encouragement his parents gave also fueled RJ’s drive to always give his best at whatever he’s doing. “It was a competitive environment, so the upbringing was one where I was really pushed to achieve; to fulfill my potential.”

Despite all these, RJ still finds time to actively serve in church as a Eucharistic minister. “We were raised to be very active in the church,” RJ explains. “It’s something that I just like to do.”

By mere chance or through the intervention of the divine, it was actually in Church where he met Vanessa, the woman who was destined to become his wife. 

 

On the love of his life

 RJ’s adoration for his wife Vanessa is nothing short of obvious and is a celebrated fact. “Vanessa was everything. Vanessa’s perfect,” he describes. 

They were schoolmates in college, but since they moved in entirely different circles, there just wasn’t any opportunity to get acquainted. “She was very popular,” RJ recalls. “She knew that I existed. She was like, ‘Oh, that’s the geek who was doing debate’, debate slash newspaper. That’s what I liked eh. And that wasn’t her world.”

It was not until a few years later that they would meet again as part of a church group called Single Young Adults. RJ was already hosting a men’s show entitled “Best Men” and doing a weekly newspaper column, both of which were laden with sexual innuendoes.“When we met in the church she was very surprised to see me over there,” says RJ. “She will tell you that she was very surprised because when she found herself being attracted to me, [it] was apparently [the time] when I was commentating in the church. ‘Oh my goodness! What a change in image!’” RJ says with a chuckle. Thus began their two and a half years of dating.

It was their shared faith and good moral foundation that paved the way for their engagement. When they attended a pre-Cana seminar (at a time when they still weren’t engaged), it helped them examine each other’s value system as well as their family background. “After that was done, it wasn’t a matter of if we would get married (or not) but rather WHEN we would get married,” says RJ.  

Quite the romantic, RJ proposed to Vanessa in Tagaytay,under the pretense that there was going to be a wedding which RJ would host. “When we arrived at the venue (it was actually our development in Tagaytay), there was nobody there, but it was set up like a wedding. She saw my brother who’s a musician and said, ‘Oh, you’re going to be playing for the wedding?’ And my brother was laughing, ‘Yes, yes, I’m playing!’” 

“I start singing (Love is All Around by Wet Wet Wet - ed.), and then all of a sudden, she saw all our friends coming out. And then she saw her mom and her brother! And they all came out and I had to propose to her right there. And the reason I proposed to her right there was that if she said yes, we would have a celebration. If she said no, we can toss her in the lake,” RJ says jokingly. The marriage preparations took a year and the couple tied the knot in 2008. 

 

[previous|page|next]

 

On marriage and raising Fortune

 Married life isn’t fraught without difficulties, and RJ expresses just how valuable the support of a community has been in helping build his relationship with Vanessa. “I can’t learn about being a parent in a vacuum,” RJ admits. “So [other] couples give me equal opportunities to understand that people have gone there before me and they can give me good advice as well.” 

Their firstborn Fortune is a honeymoon baby. “Before we even celebrated our first year wedding anniversary, we already had our anniversary gift,” RJ shares. “Our anniversary was March 7, and she came out on February 6.” 

Fortune, we hear, already knows exactly what she wants to be. Aside from being a ballerina (she specifically wanted to wear her pink tutu for this photo shoot), she also wants to be a Disney princess. “She’s just watching a lot of Disney princesses, indoctrinated in the ways of Disneyland,” explains RJ. “Disneyfied, like I was, when I was a young child. She knows that she wants to marry her dad when she grows up, so I think that’s working out pretty fine,” RJ adds with a smirk. Fortune reportedly also has a penchant for playing with her mom’s makeup.

“She’s very vivacious; she’s a girly girl,” RJ describes. “She’s a sweet child and very creative at the same time. Next year, I intend for her to start calculus na,” RJ jokes.

One of the things RJ loves the most about his entrepreneurial lifestyle is that he gets to be close to his daughter as much as possible. “That’s why I like my job, it allows me to spend time with her, because sometimes, I have to be at my computer working, but at least she’s here, so whenever she needs to pull me out, she can just do so,” RJ explains. “That takes precedence over anything else. If she wants to play, then she wants to play. We read, we draw, we watch Disney, I take her to the playground, we talk. (We do) many different things that at this time really is just quality time with her.” 

When it comes to disciplining Fortune, RJ and Vanessa work together. They believe that it’s more a matter of letting your child understand what she did wrong than resorting to spanking to instill fear and get your point across. “She’s the only child, so she gets whatever she wants,” RJ explains. “And I’m not a believer in corporal punishment, so it’s really just a matter of constantly talking to her, being stern. I think what I’ve learned from my wife is to not really reprimand but to explain, to talk to her very frankly why it’s wrong, to say that if she does something, it makes you feel bad. I think it’s [about] constant repetition. At this age, all I can really say right now is ‘No whining!’ ‘Say please!’ Very basic things.”

Since the baby is due to come out in a month’s time, RJ and Vanessa are slowly easing Fortune into the role of “ate”, or, as is the practice in the Ledesma household, “manang”, given their Ilonggo roots. “We have been counseling her to be a good manang to her younger brother,” RJ relates. “When she goes to the toy store, she says, ‘O, that’s my younger brother’ when she sees a baby.” 

“To make lambing, she hugs her mom’s stomach,” RJ illustrates. “These types of things, we try to bring out in her. And it’s a good thing that I’m neighbors with my sister so we can train her so she knows how to be a good manang. Everything is coming out. She’s learning.”

In the same way that his parents raised him to have a strong moral framework, RJ also wants Fortune to develop her character based on good principles. “My prayer every day is that she grows up to be a God-fearing child with the proper values growing up.” 

 

[previous|page|next]

A day in his shoes

 He goes on to illustrate what a typical day is like for him. “In the mornings, I get to see my daughter off to school, I answer my e-mails once in the morning, check the Twitter accounts, do some gospel readings, some prayer, and then a bit of yoga, shower, and the rest of my day goes on – either there’s a hosting job, or there’s a meeting with a wedding client. The rest of the day is really a series of meetings.”

And yet, while he juggles so many responsibilities daily, he also shares just how blessed he feels to live such an entrepreneurial lifestyle, as it affords him the chance to still have a lot of time with his family. “The schedule is flexible in the sense that I can more or less manipulate it so I can spend time with the family, that’s what I like,” says RJ. “I try to get home in time so I can have dinner with my wife and spend time with my daughter as well.” 

RJ shares how his faith helps him de-stress each day. “It was very recently that I developed a more prayerful lifestyle,” he relates. “I feel a need to start the day with a bit of gospel reading, kahit konting prayer every day, and then you learn a bit more how to pray better.”

RJ is thankful that he can work within the comfort of his own home, where his and wife Vanessa’s tables are positioned facing each other. Vanessa, a former model for a popular clothing brand, is as busy as he is, having put up her own legal consultancy business, “but I think her most trying hat is that of being the mother and the wife and being the domestic manager of this household. I leave it all to her, the mom. I just buy the ice cream.”


RJ’s advice to parents

 RJ’s relationship with his wife is the result of keeping the communication lines open between them, and keeping the family as the priority. “It’s a constant learning about each other,” he imparts. “I think the more important thing is growing together in the relationship. It’s really growing together as a couple, as a family, and [making] decisions in life where you are always together with your wife or your spouse. Don’t make decisions which might take you away from them. Make decisions which keep you all together. Any economic opportunity pales in comparison to not being able to spend time with my family.” 

He also notes for couples the importance of respecting each other’s individuality and constantly nurturing their bond by establishing a good source of support. “It’s important to have different perspectives when doing different things,” he expresses. “I think whatever takes you away from the family or takes you away from communicating with your wife, that’s really the problem eh. Whatever group you can join to keep the family together, and to understand how you can improve your communication with your wife, for me that’s very important.”

On a lighter note, and in reference to his weekly newspaper column, we asked RJ what wives can do to make their husbands feel like they’re the most “pogi” in the universe. “The love languages are really the best example. It’s not about feeling pogi but it’s feeling loved by your wife. For me, my love language is service and to her it’s words. She reminds me, acknowledgment five times a day is important for a woman, especially since that’s her love language. For me naman, it’s service, so she does something for me, that’s how I feel loved. That’s how I feel pogi.

When it comes to one’s craft or career, RJ reaffirms his faith as a key source of strength. “You work very hard, but you leave the worrying up to God. Work as hard as you can. God is good all the time. If it doesn’t seem to work for you, then try something else.”

On being a parent, RJ couldn’t have said it any better. “All we can really do is try to be the best parent we can be.”

 

[previous|page|next]

 

Bet you didn’t know: 

 1. RJ is a certified yoga teacher.

2. He’s an ovo-lacto-vegetarian. 

3. He is a Eucharistic minister.

4. He is also a vice-consul to Monaco.

5. He went to MIT for grad school, and was the first Asian to do a valedictory speech in his graduating MIT class in 2001.

6. His book “It Only Hurts When I Pee” was a finalist in the Leisure category of the 30th National Book Awards.



Photography by Pia Puno