The story begins with a man carrying a child, running for his life. Shot and left for dead beside a pier, the baby is saved, floating on the water, in a vat.
At a busy public market, Eli gets into trouble, getting into a fish fight with other coolies like him. Pong, his older brother gets into it too and they are reprimanded by their father, Dadoods. After getting a mouthful from his father, Eli enjoys a bath by the seaside.
Another person is also enjoying herself in the tub, but with the assistance of other people. Jackie is being given a grand spa treatment. She gets dressed in an elegant gown and gets decked with the most precious jewels. Eli looks like a prince himself, walking out of their shabby house in a tuxedo. Yes, they are indeed meeting each other, but not in the way you think. Jackie is the special guest of her boyfriend JB at the inauguration of their new ship while Eli is working there as a waiter. Jackie makes a grand entrance and everyone is mesmerized with her beauty, including JB.
Eli’s daydreaming halts when Celine calls his attention. She asks him to always serve drinks to a certain table. JB’s talk with Jackie gets interrupted with the presence of his mother, Corazon who introduces him to important businessmen. Jackie then feels left out and Celine sees her change in mood. Eli wishes that the lovely lady will catch his eye and she does. He gives her a smile but Jackie snobs him. This also dampens his mood. Adding to Jackie's already foul temperament was JB’s request for her to proxy for him at a baptism when she already had plans for that day herself. He thinks that she can easily cancel on her friends, this event is much more important. After a discussion, Jackie agrees. She excuses herself and calls on Eli to get a drink. He’s surprised at Jackie’s actions – she’s downing one glass of champagne after another.
The inauguration starts and during Corazon’s speech, Jackie excuses herself once again to go to the bathroom. JB tried to stop her because his mom’s speech is pretty important. Celine runs into her inside the CR. Jackie congratulates her cousin for a very organized event. She stays behind when Celine invites her to go back outside. After doing her thing, Jackie realizes she’s stuck inside one of the cubicles. She tries to call JB on his phone but to no avail. She tried calling Celine too, but her cousin was busy with other business. So Jackie had to resort to calling out for help. Fortunately, Eli was going outside with a refill of drinks when he heard shouts coming from the bathroom. He tried to help the panicking lady inside but he was exasperated with her demands and side comments. He finally tells her to shut up. Corazon finishes her speech but JB wonders where Jackie has gone to. He checks the commotion going on at the ladies restroom and sees Eli picking open the lock of a cubicle. The door pops open and Jackie rushes into JB’s arms. She thinks he was her knight in shining armor but JB corrects her motioning to the leaving waiter. She calls out after Eli and thanks him. Eli walks away, huffing and puffing to himself. How can someone he idolized be so stuck up? He takes out a magazine photo of Jackie from his wallet and talks to it.
Eli went home with a smile on his face while Jackie on her return to the mansion, plops down on her bed, exhausted. She blasts on some dance music to relax when she hears a knock on the door. Her father Fidel is back from a business trip. While making lambing to her dad, Jackie asks permission to go out with her friends next weekend. Fidel says yes but takes it back minutes later reminding her of a family visit to Guam, which disappoints Jackie. Eli gets a teasing from Pong about the smile on his face. He describes his experience on the boat and the ‘sosi’ lady named Jackie. He then gives Pong his day’s wages with the additional 300 his boss gave him for his hard work. The brothers plan to deposit it in the bank, a fund to have their Dadoods get his much needed operation. Pong says he also has to return to his studies so they can have their first engineer in the family. Eli agrees and says this will make way for Pong to work abroad and get married. They both dream of a better life. But the brothers were puzzled when they arrived home which was covered in darkness. They frantically search for their dad, and finds him lying on the floor. After rushing him to the hospital, Eli and Pong discover that Dadoods has to have an operation immediately. They consent and luckily, their father survives. He leaves Dadoods into Pong’s care to attend to his jobs that day. Unknown to Eli, Pong is actually at his wits end. They are financially in trouble. He invested their savings in a recruitment agency which turned out to be illegal. How can he tell his brother that their account is almost empty?
The next day, Jackie receives a call from JB. She thought of sharing her sad thoughts with him but they kept getting interrupted with JB’s business matters. A magazine interview later sparks an idea in Jackie’s mind. What will Jackie do at a spur of the moment, something she does not usually do? She dresses up in plain jeans, shirt, sneakers, a cap plus 300 pesos and tours around the city on foot. Celine, who drives her to Binondo thinks her cousin has gone insane. What if something happens to her? What if she gets held-up, even kidnapped? Jackie tells her this is her ‘crazy day’ and hands over her cell phone to Celine. And all her cousin could do was sigh and leave her to her plans. But just a few minutes in her new world, Jackie gets too absorbed watching a parade and gets careless losing her wallet to a pick pocket. Coincidently Eli, who was part of the parade runs into her as she gets a scolding from a fruit vendor, handling her wares without money to pay for it. Eli first thought it was the socialite again but it seemed very unlikely to find her wandering in the streets alone. Eli buys fruit too but Jackie accidentally topples one of the stands scattering oranges all over. In the chaos, Eli accidentally places his wallet inside Jackie’s plastic bag. When she disappears, Eli and the vendor mistake her for a thief. He runs after her but does not notice her in the crowd at the church. Jackie enjoys the rest of the day, using Eli’s hard earned cash. Again fate brings them together as Jackie gets drawn to a mime performance Eli is part of. She drops coins in their donation cup when Eli sees her holding his wallet. Jackie runs off but this time Eli is hot on her heels. They both get reprimanded by some MMDA agents and penalizes them with community service. Eli is furious with Jackie, because she finds the whole situation amusing! He later discovers who she is when they were done with her task. But she goes off in a rush again, remembering a date with JB. She just calls out thank you again to ‘Mamang Sungit’.
Jackie arrives and was shocked at the extravagant set-up for her and JB’s dinner. JB takes her by surprise and proposes to her. She declines. JB agrees to wait.
Out of desperation, Pong seeks help from some hoodlums in their neighborhood. They advised him to join them in an illegal activity, a surefire way to earn easy money. He is hesitant but says he’s going to think about it. They take him to a park and points out who their target is. He sees a man letting a beautiful girl in a car.
Eli fervently searched for their bank passbook in their closet. They have to pay Dadoods hospital bills. He finds it only to be stunned with what he sees. Their savings are depleted. He blames Pong, he stole their money. Pong explains later that he used the money to follow his girlfriend Dolly to Dubai. Sadly, he got tricked by the agency. He promises Eli that he will return the money as soon as possible. He need not make a big deal out of it. Pong did give the money to Eli later that afternoon. But where did it come from?
Celine is having another argument with her mother, Imelda. She again compares her daughter to Jackie. Why can’t she be more like her, sweet, refined and just proposed to by the most eligible bachelor in the country? Well, Celine couldn’t careless. Meanwhile, at the Magsaysay’s , Jackie looks out of her window and sees the guards trying to stop a woman from entering the premises of the mansion. The woman just got out of prison. Recognizing her, Jackie hides behind her curtains. After seeing Jackie’s reaction, the woman walks away rejected. On her way to a charity, Jackie remembers the times she spent with that woman, her mother. She broke her father’s heart when she left them to be with her body guard. Jackie then promised to her father that she would never ever leave his side.
Eli catches sight of Pong driving a van with 2 other men. He tries to stop him but he was too late. He’s suspicious of his brother’s actions and asks around their community. Eli finds out his brother is off to Batangas.
Jackie over sees her father’s medical mission in Batangas. She declines a dinner invitation to the mayor’s house because she’s not feeling too well. While giving away packages, she notices a girl admiring her bracelet. Out of pity, she gives it to the girl as a gift. The girl hesitated at accepting such an expensive gift, but because of Jackie’s persistence, she wears it on her wrist. A doctor then gives Jackie some medicine to help her sleep on the way home. She takes it and leaves the driving to her companion. As soon as they get on the road, a van tails their vehicle and the driver tried his best in losing it. He tries to wake Jackie up but she’s in deep sleep. They successfully kidnap her but her driver does not give up the fight. They get into a wild goose chase and the two vehicles get into an accident. Eli manages to track Pong down but the damage has been done. The very same girl to whom Jackie gave her bracelet to, witnessed the incident and tried to save Jackie’s driver’s life. Unluckily they both die when the vehicle exploded. Pong on the other hand told Eli not to worry about him, but in his passenger’s safety. He asks Eli to take Jackie to a safe place, somewhere far, far away.
source: www.abs-cbn.com
This message has been edited by elilovesjackie on Nov 2, 2006 11:52 PM
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