TWO LGBTQIA COUPLES AND THE YEAR AHEAD
Coming up first is a full-scale concert on 10 February for the LGBTQIA dazzlers Divine Divas, including Precious Paula Nicole, the first winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race Philippines.
In a New Year’s Eve Instagram post, Reoma and Lasaten shared happy snaps and clips of the intimate marriage proposal done inside a car.
Before 2022 ended, singer-actor Ice Seguerra (who has almost completely ceased to be known by the first name “Aiza”) and wife Liza Diño, who headed the Film Development Council of the Philippines under the Duterte administration, announced their plans for the new year.
Coming up first is a full-scale concert on 10 February for the LGBTQIA dazzlers
Divine Divas, including Precious Paula Nicole, the first winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race Philippines.
The contest ran from August to September 2022.
The trio’s show, also billed as “Divine Divas,” is produced by Fire and Ice LIVE!, the new entertainment company founded by the couple “to bring Filipino creativity to the global stage.”
Two members of the Divine Divas, Viñas Deluxe and Brigiding, also tried their luck in Drag Race Philippines. The trio came to life first on the Internet months before Drag Race found its way to the Philippines; when the Covid-19 restrictions loosened up, they performed at some bars where they used to be solo entertainers.
The 10 February show is their first in a concert house, with Seguerra directing.
Seguerra directed his own concert “Becoming Ice,” his 35th showbiz anniversary event held at The Theater@ Solaire on 15 October (he had a musical director, though).
The couple announced that Ice is eager to direct plays (musicals and dramas), which they intend to produce soon. Ice — as the pre-pandemic Aiza — has appeared in a number of musicals here in the country directed by Bobby Garcia of Atlantis Productions, including Aladdin and Rocky Horror Show. “Divine Divas” will be staged at the New Frontier Theater in Cubao, Quezon City. The show will include some live singing of Original Pilipino Music by the trio.
Meanwhile, “Becoming Ice” will have a repeat at the Waterfront Hotel in Cebu on 18 February. If Solaire top guests Vic Sotto and Martin Nievera can’t make it to Cebu, Liza said they bring in other showbiz biggies who have been a part of Ice’s life and career.
Both shows have actor Sylvia Sanchez as co-producer through her company Nathan Productions.
The couple is practically giving up their once much talked about plan of having a baby because it is illegal in the country for a biological woman like Liza to bear a child from a man who is not her legal husband. In the Philippines, both Liza and Ice are legally single and cannot own anything together. Liza confided at the sidelines of the media conference that all their investments as a couple are under Ice as the legal person Aiza Seguerra.
*** Ben&Ben’s keyboardist Pat Lasaten and lead bassist Agnes Reoma are engaged!
In a New Year’s Eve Instagram post, Reoma and Lasaten shared happy snaps and clips of the intimate marriage proposal done inside a car, as well as cute couple shots of them celebrating the moment with a rainbow-themed cake that reads: “Just got enGAYged! Love, The Titas.”
The couple said the engagement was forged in July. “A lot of surprises and blessings happened this 2022 but this is my favorite. Love you forever, Patfly,” Agnes wrote.
Agnes and Pat have been friends since the nine-member folk-pop band’s inception in 2015. The two also put up their own YouTube channel in October 2019 called “Pat & Agnes,” where the “two full-time touring musicians try vlogging to further
exercise their creativity.”
The band in June last year came up with a music video for their song “Paninindigan Kita” featuring the couple being sweet to each other while riding an LRT train.