MANILA, Philippines--She stood at the lanai door quietly, a box of cake in her hands, just waiting for her presence to be noticed. If we didn?t look that way, we wouldn?t have known that our main lunch guest was already there?with the dessert.

Shalani Soledad, 29, joined our lunch the way she did the national scene?quietly. Until her presence was noticed, triggering a media frenzy. People were suddenly curious about the beautiful, young woman the elusive bachelor Sen. Benigno ?Noynoy? Aquino III, 50, has been seeing.

Except for a few ?ambush interviews,? she stayed low-key, although amply photographed whenever she showed up at official functions. Generally, however, she was unseen and unheard from.

That was until this day, when she agreed to join the Thanksgiving turkey lunch our chef/friend prepared upon our request. This was late last year. We?d join Shalani a few times after that?at dinners and in the Inquirer Look magazine cover shoot at Shangri-La Makati last December, when she took the MRT from Valenzuela City to Makati to beat the holiday Edsa traffic and not delay the shoot.

Simple, no-fuss girl, we said as early as then.

It?s a simplicity instantly evident in the way she dressed up. That Thanksgiving lunch, she was in skinny denim jeans and white cotton lace top, with no accessories except for diamond stud earrings?and most obvious of all, a thin black band bracelet with yellow lettering traced in diamond glitter. The lettering reads ?Noy.?

Denim jeans, tees or cotton blouses/dresses, that Noy black bracelet?we?d discover later?are her regular style. That, and no makeup, not even lip gloss.

We?d also learn she?s most involved in, if not passionate about, two things?Noynoy and politics, particularly the people it brings. Not only is she not afraid of people, she, relatively young as she is, apparently loves people.

This was why she took up Human Resource Management at the College of Saint Benilde, and, even while in college, worked in the media office of Sen. Panfilo Lacson and the UNTV channel.

As Valenzuela City councilor, she enjoys making the obligatory rounds of wakes, weddings, baptisms and other community socials. She has more than 80 godchildren (from baptism)?and keeps track of each of them.

At a wake, her friends say, she can stay on for hours just talking to the bereaved and joining the table games. Her uncle, former mediaman Mon Soledad, still chuckles at the sight of his niece enjoying lugao served at the wake.

Memorable project

To her, what was memorable in her first years as councilor?she?s on her third and final term?was her project on early child development.

?We studied and monitored the development of kids in the community, starting with nutrition, brain development,? she said. She sounded as if she truly enjoyed the stuff other girls her age (23 at the time) would consider nerdy.

It was also her love of meeting people that led her to a first meeting with Senator Aquino?a very brief encounter the two have almost forgotten. Shalani was an on-cam UNTV reporter covering the impeachment proceedings in the Senate when she joined the media pack interviewing Aquino.

?By the time my turn came,? she recalled, ?almost all questions about the impeachment have been asked. So I asked instead about his sister Kris and a brewing controversy?I can?t remember now what it was.?

Shalani laughed at the memory. Of course, Aquino gave the expected I-don?t-meddle-with-my-sister-affairs line. Years later, when Shalani reminded Aquino of that flash interview, the two could only laugh at that ?irrelevant show-biz question.?

Yet as early as then, it was obvious who Shalani was initially interested in where Cory Aquino?s family was concerned?Kris. She told Noynoy that when he first brought her to a family lunch, she was excited because she would finally meet Kris.

?I was really starstruck,? she remembered.

The public likes to perceive friction between the hot celebrity sister and the senator?s girlfriend, especially when, immediately after the death of former President Cory Aquino, Kris made her only brother promise to stay single. But that?s an old issue by now. Shalani has long reacted to it??What matters really is what Noy says.?

Family lunch

Two nights ago, at dinner, we didn?t sense any discomfort about Kris. Shalani said that, contrary to public perception or speculation, ?it?s Kris who always makes it a point to invite me to the Sunday family lunch.?

(Especially since Cory?s death, Noynoy and his four sisters, Ballsy, Pinky, Viel and Kris, have made the Sunday lunch a family ritual, and it?s Kris apparently who is usually active at organizing it.)

Today, Valentine?s, is Kris? birthday, Shalani reminded us, smiling. Kris has invited her to the birthday get-together. So she and Noynoy will spend Valentine?s with Kris.

At the onset of their relationship, Shalani admitted she and Noynoy agreed to some terms, foremost of which was ?that family is a nonnegotiable issue.? This means she knew from the start Noynoy?s ties and commitment to his family, and she, hers. And now, his commitment to the presidency and the country.

It?s good that Shalani is not clingy, we (fishing for reaction, of course) told Senator Aquino once. To which he said, ?Perhaps it helps that she has her own busy schedule. Palaging hermana mayor yan, may kasal.?

These days, Shalani keeps her own killer-paced campaign itinerary, as re-electionist councilor and Aquino supporter. For the presidential campaign, she?s been to Cagayan de Oro, Davao, Zamboanga, Marinduque, among other stops?separate from the senator?s itinerary. (?Because it?s more efficient that way,? she explained.)

And she seems to thrive in politics.

This was an evolution that was hardly expected of her. Her family wasn?t really a political family, at least not in the Aquino mode.

Her mother Evelyn?s family?the Soledads?hails from Bicol. Her mother?s younger brother Mon married a Bulakeña of a landed family from Valenzuela, so Shalani has lived most of her life in Valenzuela. They?re only two; older brother Carlo is now an entrepreneur living in Antipolo.

She grew up mostly with uncle Mon, his wife Baby and their brood of three boys, since her mother worked as airline attendant and thus was seasonally away. But when Shalani was in high school at Marymount in BF, Parañaque, and in college at St. Benilde, she enjoyed the close-knit extended family.

After her airline stint, Evelyn went into the food business and, not known to many, she was the food director of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at Malacañang for a time. She quit, however, even before Shalani and Aquino went steady, and now runs her own catering business.

No-fear generation

It was at the family dinner table one night that uncle Mon, who was being asked to run as councilor, turned to his niece and said, ?Why don?t you run instead?? Shalani, she of the no-fear generation, agreed, open to new experience.

Her first stint as councilor was tough, especially since she was up against seasoned opponents. Upon learning that a powerful religious bloc would not support her, she ran to her room, crying, and locked herself up.

But uncle Mon told her to come out, stop crying, and face the hurdle ?like a grownup.? (She placed fifth that first time. In the next elections, she topped the councilor polls.) Indeed it?s been obvious how the uncle has been protective and nurturing of her.

Now everybody, including her uncle, calls her konsehala. She now told us being a councilor has opened the door to many learnings and opportunities.

?If I didn?t become councilor, I wouldn?t have known the nitty gritty of building a classroom, why leveling this lot would cost this or that, or why tents are so important in the lives of people,? she said.

The poor use tents for wakes and weddings, and Shalani treats tents as if they were God?s blessings she should make available to everyone, any time.

Today, one sees she has learned politics astutely. When we asked her what she thought would take to win over the masa, she noted sadly that, while the masa could be so familiar with a candidate, sometimes at the end of the day, when a poor family is in dire need, it?s the politician who is ready to dole out whom they will remember come election time.

?It?s the Filipino?s sense of utang na loob,? she said.

Even Noynoy observes that Shalani wasn?t always this involved or knowledgeable of politics, not when they first met at least. But then, they have also spent a lot of time the past year and so many months and days (Noynoy has the exact count of days they?ve been going steady) talking about politics, people?s projects and such.

When asked what drew them to each other, Noynoy would always readily say it?s the rapport, and apparently that exchange was mainly about each other?s political involvement. Noynoy was born to politics, Shalani was/is interested in politics. They can spend a date, when Noynoy comes calling amid his hectic schedule, just talking for hours about it.

?Kilig? dialogue

As the story is repeatedly told, the two met at Alfredo?s. She was with her colleagues at one table, he with his staff at another table. Each spotted the other, and the rest is stuff of Philippine campaign history.

But of that early romance, what draws fond chuckles now is the recollection of a kilig dialogue. The senator was recalling his brush with death in 1987 when he was ambushed at the height of the coup, when his bodyguards died and he sustained a bullet wound (a fraction of that bullet is still lodged in the left side of his neck, behind the ear, which explains why his head seems to have that perennial tilt).

Touched by that story, Shalani told him there must be a reason he now had a new lease on life, meaning destiny must have a greater plan for him. The senator-suitor replied, ?Yes, [the reason being] that I?d meet you 20 years later.?

Talk about a pa-pogi line.

Not only did the two hit it off, the senator-suitor also blended well with Shalani?s younger male cousins. They?d watch movies and go malling. As Shalani?s cousin Martin said, ?He?s taong-tao. Funny. Really cool.?

Martin can?t forget one dinner in a restaurant, when Noynoy, out of the blue, bought flowers which he then offered Shalani.

Believing in her boyfriend?s destined role now, Shalani has decided to forego running for Congress and just seek reelection as councilor so she could focus on his campaign.

?If I ran for Congress, I could help my district. But if we work [for Aquino?s candidacy], it?s the greater country that stands to benefit,? she said matter of factly.

Curiously, Noynoy doesn?t show off Shalani. He doesn?t bring her to high-profile functions. Obviously, he believes a sliver of privacy could still be kept at this point.

As to whether or not their relationship will go to a deeper level?marriage, in short, like what many are curious about?Shalani said that like in any relationship, ?one waits for defining moments.?

Exactly what those moments are, she couldn?t specify. ?You just know they are defining moments.?

When her mother first learned that Shalani was seeing the senator, she sat down with her daughter for a woman talk. Her mother reminded, if not cautioned, her that the Aquinos are a very wealthy and prominent clan.

?Do you know what you?re getting into?? her mother asked her.

Today, more than a year later, apparently, the daughter does know.