Jay-Jay Barretto on sister Gia: 'Her letter is so many lies'

PEP EXCLUSIVE: This is a continuation of the April 26, 2013, interview of Joaquin “Jay-Jay” Barretto by PEP editor-in-chief Jo-Ann Q. Maglipon. 

 

That interview, PEP’s second with Jay-Jay, was conducted by phone, one at 10 a.m. and another at 7 p.m., with the calls lasting roughly an hour each.

 

The first article we posted, based on that interview, appeared on April 29, and was titled Jay-Jay Barretto: “You want to fix this family, fix Claudine.” 

 

This is the second article we are posting, based on the same interview, and here Jay-Jay counters the April 26 open letter of his sister Gia Barretto-Reyes, who refuted his own open letter of April 24.

 

Jay-Jay’s April 24 letter was itself a rebuke of the open letter of their mother Inday Barretto, which was published in a national newspaper earlier that day.

 

With Mrs. Barretto’s open letter, her family saga—before this, confined only to bursts of activated and deleted postings on Instagram by her warring daughters Gretchen, Marjorie, and Claudine—finally hit the mainstream media, triggering the current maelstrom.

 

A family divided

 

“Her letter is so many lies,” Joaquin “Jay-Jay” Barretto exclaims. “Ayokong magkasiraan, but they are coming out with lies!”

 

He is clearly upset by his sister Gia Barretto-Reyes’s letter of April 26, which, after calling their sister Gretchen “vile” and “evil,” went on to dismiss Jay-Jay, who spoke out in Gretchen's defense, as having no credibility.

 

“Jay-Jay [sic] comments on TV,” Gia wrote, “are only credible in as far as he is caught between a rock and a hard place, because he is in your [Gretchen’s] employ.”  

 

Gia’s letter was addressed to Gretchen, and was apparently sent from her residence in the US, not to Gretchen, but to their mother Inday, who then gave it to a local newspaper to publish.

 

Jay-Jay admits that the Barretto family is now deeply divided between those “kay Claudine” and those “kay Gretchen.”

 

He rues, “Dahil kay Mommy, nagkampi-kampihan na. Hindi siya nag-isip, she didn’t consult the family! She should never have sent that letter to the [The Philippine] Star.”

 

In the divided Barretto family, those “kay Claudine,” he says, are: Gia, the fourth among seven children; Michi, the second oldest; and their parents Miguel and Inday. 

 

Those “kay Gretchen,” he says, are: Mito, the oldest child; Marjorie, the sixth child, born between Gretchen and Claudine; and himself.

 

By Jay-Jay’s telling, “Si Michi definitely will be on the side of Claudine. She’s indebted to Claudine, indebted kay Claudine ’yan.

 

“Si Mito, maka-pamilya talagang anak ’yan. Grabe, he cares so much for my mom and my dad. So ’yong sa kanya ngayon, para bang, even if he feels this way, he cannot speak out...

 

“Pero 'pag kami ang magkasama, that’s when nagbubuhos ’yon, sinasabi niya how he feels.

 

“Sabi niya, ‘Mali talaga si Mommy. Mali talaga ’yong 'nilabas ’yong mga ST Queen’ and all that. Why did she have to do that? Why didn’t she consult with us? Malaking kahihiyan ito sa pamilya. Nahihiya ako sa business partners ko’ and all that.

 

“But he doesn’t wanna go against my dad kasi nga sobra-sobrang mahal niya ’yong daddy ko.”

 

Jay-Jay loves his father as strongly as his brother Mito does, he insists, but he feels more of a need to speak out.

 

“This one talaga, ang kawawa dito talaga si Daddy. My God, kanina nga naiiyak na ako kasi I’m caught in the middle.

 

“I don’t want my dad to look like para bang wala siyang silbi? I don’t want that. He has a few years na lang of his life.

 

"Is this the legacy he wants to leave? Hindi fair, he has a few years na lang of his life…

 

“That’s why nga si Mommy, she shouldn’t have done this, e! Si Daddy ang napapasama...

 

“Di ba, parang nag-aaway-away na ‘Ako bumuhay! Ako bumuhay!’ 

 

“E si Daddy? Ano gusto niyong palabasin? Na si Daddy walang nagawa para sa pamilya? Nakakahiya naman, di ba?

 

“Si Mommy, hindi niya dapat ginawa ito. Hindi na dapat nagkampi-kampihan.

 

"Kung wala ’yong lies, ok na, hindi na rin ako magsasalita. Never naman ako nagsalita before.

 

"Pero her [Gia's] letter is so many lies.”

 

Jay-Jay reserves his ire for Gia, the sibling born right after him. “Si Gia talaga, I just really want to…,” he says, choosing his words.

 

“Walang utang na loob ’yang tao na ’yan. Wala.

 

“Noon pa, iba na ugali niyan, di ko siya kasundo.”

 

Jay-Jay goes on to talk about how Gia was able to enter a top university here, study abroad, and put up a day-care center also abroad—“lahat dahil kay Gretchen.”

 

“Si Gretchen, never siyang naging madamot kay Gia,” he begins.

 

“Nag-aral ’yan ng college, Psychology—si Gretchen ’yon. Nag-aral uli sa Canada, gipit din siya doon—si Gretchen pa rin. $3,000 a month bigay ni Gretchen.

 

“'Yong day care niya sa Boston [Massachusetts, USA]—meron siya, it's small lang naman—pero si Gretchen din ’yon.

 

“Pupunta siya dito, ’yong tickets niya, bayad. Bibigyan pa ’yan ng hundreds of thousands of pesos [pag nandito], tapos may pabaon pa ’yan pauwi, $5,000, ganyan.

 

“Gia, for her to say that...the way she’s bashing Gretchen! As if hindi siya natulungan ni Gretchen?

 

“Siya ang talagang nakinabang sa lahat, my god! Wala siyang naitulong kay Gretchen, wala siyang… and the way she talks about Gretchen pa.”

 

When and why Gia turned cold on Gretchen, he says, is something he had not followed too well. But it may have been—he speculates, now that he knows more about Gia and Gretchen’s personal exchange—the time Gretchen failed to help when Gia wanted to buy a house in the US.

 

“Parang kelangan ni Gia ata ng $50,000 downpayment, bibili ng bahay sa Boston. E, I think, may away-away [noon], kumakampi siya [Gia] siguro kina Mommy or Claudine, so Gretchen declined.”

 

He says he doesn’t know if Gia ever bought that house. Or if she turned to Claudine for help. Or if help ever came from their youngest. He doesn’t sound like he cares.

 

Instead, he says, his voice stronger than usual: “Si Gia, siya lang ang bukod-tanging nakapag-Ateneo. Bukod tanging nakatikim ng masters degree. Bukod tangi sa aming magkakapatid. Pero ni isang kusing, walang naitulong sa pamilya.”

 

Having said that, Jay-Jay would still have PEP know that nobody in the family ever wanted this deep divide to happen, especially not him.

 

“Ayaw ko nitong kampi-kampi,” he says, his voice back to its usual calm and even tone. “Ang tagal kong neutral. Hindi ako nagsasalita, kahit na anong gulo sa mga kapatid ko, di ako nagsalita.

 

“Pero ito, sobra na. Mga lies na ang pinag-uusapan dito. Sinisiraan nina Mommy ang isang kapatid namin [Gretchen] para lang ma-please ang isang kapatid [Claudine].

 

“Walang pakialam si Mommy kung magkasira-sira ang pamilya—lahat para kay Claudine. Mom is so blinded, she is so one- sided.

 

“Pati Daddy, damay. Tama ba ’yon? How can I not speak?”

 

Gretchen’s employee? 

 

Gia’s letter is “lies, lies, lies,” he reiterates. And what's dangerous, he says, is that they’re more believable because they pick up from something true.

 

One such lie, he says, is Gia saying he is in Gretchen’s employ.

 

“That’s not true. I’m not employed by Gretchen,” Jay-Jay says, still calmly.

 

“Ang nangyari diyan, I was with the government. Sa Immigration [Bureau]. Pero mga two years ago, I got out na.

 

“You know, siguro si Gretchen, being with Tonyboy [Cojuangco], and Tonyboy the cousin of PNoy [President Noynoy Aquino]—sabi niya, siya mismo, ‘Jay, umalis ka na lang diyan kasi ang pangit tignan.’

 

“You know what I mean? Kasi baka sabihin, ‘A, kasi ginamitan ng lakas ni Gretchen’ and all that.  

 

“Siya na mismo nagsabi na, ‘Wag ka na magtrabaho sa gobyerno, especially not now kasi baka iba ’yong isipin ng mga tao.’

 

“Ako, ayoko rin sabihin na, ‘A, kasi malakas ’yong kapatid niyan, e.’ You know what I mean?”

 

But Jay admits that he and Gretchen have business plans together.

 

“Yeah, even before this thing [family problems coming out in public] happened, we were already planning, and all that.

 

“She goes, ‘Oh, don’t work na nine-to-five and all. Magnegosyo na lang tayo. Help me out.’

 

“Gano’n. You know what I mean? Tapos, palalabasin nilang bayaran ako ni Gretchen? Of course not! May savings naman ako. Inayos ko naman ang buhay ko. 

 

“Pero, eto ’yong sinasabi kong mga puwede mong gawing lies mula sa totoo.”

 

Rich or poor? 

 

When Gia wrote in her open letter that—“1. We live in big beautiful houses 2. Slept in carpeted, air-conditioned rooms, 3. Food galore 4. Put in an exclusive school 5. Members of exclusive country club 6. We each have our own yayas, yours [Gretchen] even a midwife and 7. Driven by chauffeurs”—this opened a whole new territory.

 

Now, Gia is saying the Barrettos were rather rich, while Jay-Jay is saying they were rather poor.

 

And, suddenly, it has become the public's business to ask: were they rich or were they poor?

 

As answer, Jay-Jay gives a small history of the Barretto family: “You know what? Iyang ‘kinukuwento ni Gia na buhay na maganda, sa Cebu ’yon. Halos do’n lang ‘pinanganak si Marjorie noon. Maganda buhay namin doon.

 

“These all happened when we were in Cebu, that was when we were, like, 10 years old, 11 years old.

 

“We had a good life in Cebu, but when we transferred here [Makati], when I was 15 or 18, it wasn’t like that. Si Gretchen, mga nine or 10 noon.

 

“We never had yayas. My mom can’t have yayas! She’s not nice to helpers, everybody knows that...

 

“At walang driver! I was the one driving for everyone. That’s the truth.

 

“Of course, ’yong sinasabi ni Gia, that’s not a lie, but it’s hiding the truth. You know what I mean?

 

“Parang—ito ’yong ‘kinukuwento niya, pero bakit hindi niya ikuwento ’yong the other side naman?

 

“Iyong—pagpunta namin dito sa Manila, hindi na gano’n ang buhay namin. ‘How dare you naman say all this?’ Di ba? ‘Basta magsabi ka naman ng totoo.’

 

“Kasi she’s telling the truth probably about our life in Cebu and all that, but you know, when you’re not telling the whole story, it’s like lying na rin.”

 

By Jay-Jay’s recall, life in Cebu was soft and easy. The country club memberships and carpeted air-conditioned rooms, which Gia says they enjoyed, are from that period.

 

“Pero ’yong chauffeur-driven cars?” he asks quizzically.

 

Jay-Jay, 51, pins the family’s move to Manila from Cebu (“My father lost his business”) sometime in 1978.

 

“It was tough,” he admits. “We were just living with my lola nga. It was in Makati, sa Dian.

 

“We were all sleeping in one room, actually. Nasa isang room lang kami sa bahay ng lola ko.

 

“Ayoko na sanang lumabas ’yan, kasi kawawa ang daddy, but I have to dispute what Gia was saying, e. Hindi totoo ’yon, e!

 

“We never had a driver when we were in Manila. Kasi, nung nagpunta na kami sa Manila, ako na ang nagmamaneho para sa pamilya. Ako ang driver ng mga kapatid ko!

 

“Ano’ng driver ang sinasabi niya? Sabihin nga niya kung ano ang pangalan ng driver?

 

“Ako nagda-drive. Noong nag-aaral sila [his younger siblings], I was bringing them to school, picking them up.

 

“So ayun, I was in college. I had to fit it in my schedule para mahatid ko sila, masundo ko sila. Pero walang driver!”

 

He says that, from his grandmother’s house, they rented a place in Moonwalk, a subdivision in Parañaque City. Then came a time, he says, when Gretchen was able to help the family out.

 

Gretchen’s help

 

As he looks back and tries to see things from Gretchen’s point of view, he feels a real empathy for his sister.

 

“Traumatic nga siguro ’yong childhood niya,” Jay-Jay muses. “Parang she felt siguro, if I were in her place ha, para bang ‘Obligasyon ko lahat noong kabataan ko.’ That was when she was starting [in showbiz].

 

“Maybe she felt that way. Maybe she felt deprived. Maybe she deserved more.

 

“And siguro ’yong earnings niya, when she was making a lot of money, sikat na sikat siya when she was doing '14 Going Steady.'

 

“She earned a lot of money. Where did it go? Di ba wala naman siyang naipundar during that time?

 

“For them [his parents and Gia] to deny that, and not acknowledge that? E, hindi naman tama ’yon.

 

“Na parang ‘pinapalabas nila na si Claudine ang tumulong. Of course not! Si Gretchen ang tumulong talaga noong umpisa.

 

“Noong tumulong na si Claudine, we were kinda well-off na. Okey naman na si Daddy.

 

“Pero when we transferred from Cebu, talagang medyo naghirap kami dito for a few years. Until pumasok si Gretchen sa showbiz, gumanda na naman ang buhay namin. Why can’t they acknowledge that?”

 

Asked to explain how their lives changed, he says, “That’s when we were renting na in nice houses. We were living in nice houses na.

 

“We had a lot of cars na. There was a time nga, we had four cars, five cars. We were renting houses na 30,000 [pesos] a month, 40,000 [pesos].

 

“During that time, malaki na ’yon—six bedrooms, seven bedrooms! Kumportable ang buhay namin noon.

 

“Wala pa si Claudine noon. Wala pa sa showbiz si Claudine. When Claudine became older, definitely she was able to help.

 

“But Claudine definitely did not send us to school. How can she? I’m 51, she’s 33! When I was studying, what was she?

 

“Nung gumanda ang buhay namin, it was Gretchen. Why can’t they admit that?

 

“Alam ko, because I was there. Every day kami magkasama niyan. Every day! Lahat ng taping, lahat ng shooting. Long, long hours ’yan, mga out of town pa.

 

“Gretchen and I were pinaka-close. I would drive for her, I would be in all her shoots. Takot naman 'yang mag-isa.

 

“We shared the same room when we would have these out-of-town shoots. Ako magpapa-weewee diyan. E, ako ang yaya at driver niyan, 'no? I was much older naman kasi.”

 

He sets the record straight about whether Gretchen liked working in showbiz or was forced to by her family: “Yes, I can tell you that Gretchen really did like showbiz.”

 

Then he adds, “But that doesn’t change the fact that she worked for the family—especially during the time that dad had his heart problems.”

 

He also says it’s unfair for Gia and his mom not to throw a single thank-you Gretchen’s way.

 

“Para siraan lang si Gretchen, to discredit lang Gretchen, na hindi siya tumulong, palalabasin sa mga tao na… That’s not true! I was there. My god, ako pa, I was there.

 

“Ito na nga si Mother Lily mismo, lumalabas. Si Robbie na nga mismo, lumalabas. You know what I mean?”

 

Mother Lily Monteverde, proprietor of Regal Films, and Robbie Tan, who owned Seiko Films, recently appeared in TV interviews to talk about how Gretchen helped her family out during the years that the star worked for their film outfits.

 

Jay-Jay adds, “Kasi, kung gusto nila [the pro-Claudine members of the family] maglabas ng baho, e di ilabas na nila lahat. Ilabas din ’yong katotohanan.

 

“Hindi ’yong...hindi sasabihin ’yong buong istorya! That’s not fair. That’s misleading to the public, di ba?”  

 

And part of being fair, he says, is to acknowledge that their father worked for many good years for the family. In Cebu, he ran a business that provided well for the growing family. In Makati, he worked for their grandmother. In later years, he worked as a director of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority.

 

His sisters Gretchen and Claudine were big earners, Jay-Jay acknowledges, but he clarifies, “Si Daddy naman, not for anything, na parang wala siyang silbi ‘no? Inatake kasi siya sa puso. He had a heart attack kasi.

 

“It’s not that wala siyang silbi or pendeho siya or irresponsible or not a good provider. Hindi siya ganoon! He had a series of heart attacks also kasi."

 

And before he got really sick, his father, with Jay-Jay, managed to pool their resources to get what would become the Barretto family home in Merville. They weren't renting anymore.

 

"Nagkabahay na kami noong after I closed that deal. Isinama na ang tulong ni Dad. Tapos, later, tumulong na rin si Claudine sa amortization."

 

He says thoughtfully, "Hindi kami naghirap, pero wala kaming super-super na sinasabi nila.

 

"That is what Mommy wants to bring out [riches], and I have to refute that—that’s a lie. That’s a lie.

 

"If she didn't want our family to look bad or my dad to look bad, she should not have started all this, di ba? She started all this!

 

"And she got Gia to join her pa."

 

Inday and Gretchen

 

Then Jay-Jay drops something that opens a whole new territory again: he says his mom never showed even the smallest affection for Gretchen.

 

"Ever since, I never saw Mom show any love for Gretchen. Up to now, Gretchen has to prove herself.

 

"Ay, naku, wala. Mom talks bad about her, never ending 'yan, never ending 'yan.

 

“She always hated Gretchen. Kung anong pagmamahal niya kay Claudine, siya namang galit niya kay Gretchen.

 

“Kahit to acknowledge what she’s [Gretchen] given to the family, wala! Gretchen gave so much to the family, but in Mommy’s eyes, it’s just Claudine. Only Claudine. Sobrang galit kay Greta."

 

It's beyond his understanding, he says, "Mom never had kahit konting amor for Gretchen. Hindi ko nga alam bakit." —Pep.ph