Former President Joseph Estrada and wife former Senator Loi Estrada ride a golf cart while celebrating their golden wedding anniversary at their resthouse in Tanay, Rizal. (Photo by ALI VICOY)

Two family cooks, four yayas, a driver, and handyman who had served the Estradas for more than three decades joined the children of former President Joseph Estrada and First Lady Luisa Ejercito-Estrada who celebrated their golden wedding anniversary last Sunday in the quaint terrains of Tanay, Rizal where the former president was detained for almost seven years.

Dressed in formal wear, they marched with Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada, his sister Jackie, and youngest sibling Jude and their children in the red carpet of the tiny chapel to begin what mass celebrant Msgr. Albert Venus described as the Estrada’s “50th-year celebration of the gifts of love, joy, pain and sorrow.”

Waiting at the altar were Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and wife, Mrs. Cristina Castaner-Enrile, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, and former Supreme Court Chief Justice Andres Narvasa who stood as sponsors for the famous couple.

Household cook Paz Tullay, now 69 years old, linked hands with fellow cook Mercy Gratuita, Dolores Custodio, Leonora de Joseph, driver Arnel Giron who married to Estrada’s girl Friday, Merle, and Jun Abarra, the handyman, during the celebrations.

They all had served the Estradas for at least three decades, with most of them staying with their families in the Estrada compound in North Greenhills.

Members of Estrada’s Cabinet who had stood by their Commander-in-Chief “through all the good and bad times” together with their spouses, were also in attendance in the flower-decked chapel as the celebrators reaffirmed their commitment to one another amid the memory of joys and sorrows they have shared together for half a century.

An emotional Estrada, dressed in Barong Tagalog, with the deeply-religious Dra. Loi on his arms, marched to the altar to formally start the golden wedding rites amid a backdrop of heart-warming applause from the intimate gathering of family and loyal friends.

Following the mass, the Estradas received the nuptial blessings from the celebrating priests “that Divine Providence continue to fill them with everlasting joy until they enter into their heavenly inheritance”.

The mass over, Estrada kissed his bride of 50 years on both cheeks, tightly hugging her in a rain of petals of white roses and rice strewn at their path. They then turned around to face their guests and bowed to their joyful ring of applause, cheers and good wishes for what the future holds for them.

At the reception that followed at the Estradas’ Tanay resthouse which is now a tourist destination, the couple mingled with guests to the strains of “Always You,” their love song.

In a brief unrehearsed talk in the course of the reception, Estrada chronicled his life with the former First Lady and Senator which he said began “more than fifty years ago” after he met and fell for his future bride at the then National Mental Hospital where he was working as a “casual employee.”

He mentioned that his work as a mimeographer at the hospital was his third job following his stint as a timekeeper at the Galaxy Theatre on Rizal Avenue in Manila, and as an ambulance driver at the San Lazaro Hospital.

“I was struggling to earn my own money, and was not allowed to use any of the two family vehicles assigned for the exclusive use of my elder brothers and sisters,” Estrada said.

He later learned that Drs. Loi’s favorite was a half-order of Max chicken, and borrowing an old jeep that was almost a junk, he invited her to dinner “over a whole order of Max chicken.”

The popular opposition leader admitted that his future bride was ostracized by the hospital hierarchy for entertaining Estrada as a suitor.

“It became a challenge to me, and I could only imagine how it felt for Dra. Loi, facing an uncertain future with a college dropout,” Estrada said, admitting he was beyond belief that one of the highest officials of the hospital agreed when he popped the question.

“Thank you Loi for having sacrificed a lot for me, for forgiving me for all my failings and faults, for loving me truly when I had none, for having stood by me in my long and colorful career as a movie actor, public servant, and specially as a government prisoner.

“Thank you for sharing with me 50 wonderful and painful years, inspiring and supporting me specially in my most painful and difficult moments,” Estrada said before the huge crowd of cheering friends and admirers.

“You will always be my First Lady.”