MANILA, Philippines—President Macapagal-Arroyo is keeping mum on the reported upcoming wedding of her daughter Evangelina Lourdes “Luli” Arroyo to former investment banker J. Aloysius “Luigi” Bernas.

Friends of Bernas said the wedding is set for January next year in Bohol. They said the two have been dating for several years. One friend described Bernas as “very well-mannered and very smart and serious about Luli.”

Meanwhile, sources told the Inquirer that Luli had confirmed to a very close friend that she is indeed getting married. But Luli said she did not want to give any details because she is a very private person.

After signing the Credit Information System Law in Malacañang on Friday, the President engaged heads of banks and financial institutions in a lively banter before she was pulled aside by civilians for some picture-taking.

While walking out of the Rizal Hall, the President was asked by some reporters to confirm the wedding of her only daughter and unmarried child. She merely smiled and walked on.

‘I don’t know’

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said he learned about the report on TV and was inclined to believe it. He, however, could not confirm it.

“I can’t confirm it because I have not spoken with the President. I’m not in a position [to confirm it]. I tend to believe that,” Ermita said in an interview.

Later, when he was pressed to reveal more by reporters, he said: “I don’t know really. I also read about it. I don’t have any idea.”

Secretary Cerge Remonde, Presidential Management Staff chief, also said: “I don’t know anything about it.”

Private person

Quoting sources, ABS-CBN News reported online that Luli, the second of the President’s three children, is set to tie the knot with young Bernas on Jan. 9, 2009 in Bohol province.

Luli, 37, neither confirmed nor denied the report. “I never talk about my personal life. My personal life has never been open to media and that doesn’t change,” she told ABS-CBN in an e-mail.

Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, one of the authors of the Credit Information System Law who showed up at the signing of the law, said he congratulated the presidential daughter via text message.

“She never texted back,” he told some reporters. “She never confirmed or denied.”

Luli is a passionate scuba diver and dedicated environmentalist.

She is perhaps the most tech-savvy among the three Arroyo children and worked as director of operations for the nongovernmental organization Foundation for Information Technology, Education and Development (Fit-Ed). Fit-Ed’s objective is to increase IT awareness and contribute to the effort to prepare Philippine society for the Information Age.

In 2000, she passed the foreign service examinations but decided not to pursue a diplomatic career because her mother would not sign her appointment papers for fear of being accused of nepotism.

Luli studied high school at Assumption and college at the Ateneo de Manila. She worked for a year with Ayala Land and then took up her masters in Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Business and culinary arts

According to ABS-CBN, Bernas is the son of lawyer Antonio Bernas and a nephew of the Ateneo Law School dean emeritus and constitutional law expert and Inquirer columnist Fr. Joaquin Bernas.

According to his profile on linkedin.com, Bernas is former director at Ayala Foundation Inc., former senior managing director at Bear Stearns Int’l Ltd. and former managing director at Bankers Trust Co.

He took a professional culinary course at the La Scuola Culinaria Cordon Bleu-Firenze in Italy from 2002 to 2003. He finished his MBA at the University of Virginia-Darden School of Business Administration where he studied from 1984 to 1987 and awarded the Darden School Scholarship. He holds a master’s degree in History and East Asian Studies also at the University of Virginia where he studied from 1984 to 1986.

He graduated from the Ateneo de Manila University with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics degree in 1982.