MANILA, Philippines—You’d think she’d pick her signature songs, “Eres Tu” and “Besame Mucho.” But asked to name the song of her life, chanteuse Carmen Soriano chooses something unexpected and uncharacteristic: Neil Diamond’s “I Am … I Said.”

“Not only do I like the melody, I also love the words,” she notes. “I can relate to its message: ‘No matter what I am … no matter what you think I am … this is me.’”

Warts and all.

“Colorful,” she describes her life story. “And that’s not just because of the men I loved,” she jests. There’s another song in her heart, for the hopeless romantic in her. “‘No Other Love,’ the first song I performed in public.”

Then 17, Carmen, who had just won Miss Martine Carol (a search for the local counterpart of the French actress), competed in the Miss Philippines pageant.

“It was a contest to find the country’s representative in Miss Universe,” she recalls. “I was one month shy of the age limit, so I got the second place instead: Miss Manila.”

As part of her prize, she traveled to Hong Kong, where she was feted by a bunch of newsmen in the nightclub, Winner House. “They asked me to sing,” she says. “I only knew one song. Actually, half a song: Jo Stafford’s ‘No Other Love,’ my favorite.”

As luck would have it, the club’s band leader was a Filipino named Celso Carillo. “He asked if I wanted to sing at the club, just for the novelty of it.” Since she was underage, she had to fly back to Manila and obtain her parents’ permission.

“I worked there for three months,” she says. “When the contract ended, I came home and sang at the Manila Hotel’s Jungle Bar. It all started there.”

Lloyd Sr.

In the 1960s, Carmen also had singing engagements abroad— most notably in Australia where she met Italian-Canadian businessman Lloyd Samartino Sr., with whom she had a son, actor Lloyd Samartino, born in 1962.

Since she wanted to live in Manila and her husband had business ventures in Australia, they soon decided to “separate amicably.”

After the Jungle Bar, she moved to the famed nightspot Bulakeña and, later, to Eduardo’s. In these clubs that served as "schools," she learned to work the crowd onstage and “avoid trouble offstage.”

“Manila Mayor Arsenio Lacson once asked me to join his table,” she relates. “I respectfully declined and explained that it was a personal policy. Lacson understood. Another politician, who shall remain nameless, didn’t get it.”

The unnamed politico felt offended, Carmen recalls. “When he learned that I was singing in a club in his turf, he made sure that I lost my job.”

That rumor

That wasn’t the last time she had a brush with the ugly side of politics. In the 1970s, gossip spread like the proverbial wildfire: Carmen was having an affair with then president Ferdinand Marcos.

“There is absolutely no truth to [that],” she says. “The rumor mill went haywire because I left the country at the time. But my reasons had nothing to do with him.”

In her absence, the rumor assumed a life of its own. “There was even a story that his wife, Imelda Marcos, threw acid on my face,” Carmen says. “That’s not true. If I had plastic surgery as early as then, I wouldn’t be able to talk or even open my mouth now.”

Since it was the height of martial law, she became as social pariah. “My career suffered. I couldn’t get jobs. I couldn’t explain myself to the media, either, because people were afraid to offend the Marcoses.”

The only journalist who dared tell Carmen’s side was Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc, now Inquirer editor in chief. “I’m eternally grateful to her,” the singer says.

In retrospect, Carmen says the rumor was “probably spread by the jealous wife of an admirer. I’m just guessing. I’m only trying to analyze what went wrong.”

When that storm passed, Carmen continued singing, crossing over to television and the movies. “I had three TV shows— ‘For Men Only’ and ‘Carmen on Camera’ on Channel 5 and ‘Carmen in Color’ on Channel 9.”

Leading men

She had the likes of Eddie Mesa, Tony Ferrer and, of course, real-life love Eddie Rodriguez, as leading men on the big screen.

With Eddie, two movies stand out in Carmen’s memory: “Malayo Man, Malapit Din” and “Simula ng Walang Katapusan” (the latter co-starred Vilma Santos).

The way Carmen remembers it, her own love story with Eddie could rival the best silver screen romances.

“We first got together when I was 16. It was just puppy love. My mom adored him, but I thought he was boring, stiff and too formal.”

Two decades after that initial encounter, their paths crossed again.

“We starred in a film on the life of Gen. Jose Rancudo. We were both separated [from our spouses] then.”

That time around, it was a relationship of equals, she says. “We were both successful in our careers and both mature.”

Eventually, they also separated. Carmen found love the third time around in Robert Dabao, a doctor. “He had courted me earlier, but he was married. So I ignored him,” she says.

Twenty years had also passed after that first time. When they reunited, they moved to the US. They stayed together until his passing 14 years ago.

“[When he died], I had to stay in Los Angeles to settle some matters,” Carmen says. “That was why I stayed out of the limelight for a while.”

There was a more compelling reason for the retirement, she admits. “I gained 50 pounds. All my life, I was on a diet. I had promised myself that, when I reached a certain age, I would eat what I wanted and not care. I wanted to enjoy life.”

Comeback concert

But the lure of the spotlight proved irresistible for Carmen, who staged a comeback early this year.

She top-billed a series of SRO shows dubbed “Golden Divas” with fellow showstoppers Carmen Pateña and Pilita Corrales. The show will take them on the road, to Cebu and the US, soon— after another replay on Oct. 17 at the Captain’s Bar of the Mandarin Oriental hotel.

“It was an adrenaline rush,” she describes being onstage with Carmen and Pilita. “The audience was very appreciative and happy to see us.”

Recently, she guested in an episode of the GMA 7 series “Obra,” directed by Maryo J. de los Reyes.

Leisurely life

Although she’s raring to go back to work, she says she enjoys the leisurely pace of her life now.

Most of the time, she’s home reading or supervising the never-ending renovation of her suburban place, or meeting with friends, or hanging out with grandson Sergio.

“I like the way I am now. I have few regrets,” she insists. Even the bad decisions she has made, she says, “are part of the Book of Life. Mistakes make you a better person.”

She’s comfortable in her own skin, obviously. “I don’t mind being my age. I have a 45-year-old son! How can I lie about my age then?”

E-mail: bayanisandiego@hotmail.com