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ON THE dance floor, Cebu's premiere dance sports couple, Edward and Eleonor Hayco, perform with a competitive spirit, will and a determination to dominate.
Off the dance floor, the will to dominate dissipates when the Haycos live their ordinary lives as a married couple.
“We do not try to dominate each other. We don't compete for dominance or for authority. We don't try to control,” Edward Hayco said of his 23 years of marriage to Eleonor.
Edward is the founder of Dancesport Team Cebu City, whose advocacy for training interested youths at the barangay level and participating in competitive ballroom events around the world,is shared by his wife.
Less known known is how they met and found the chemistry that kept their union intact.
He first saw Eleonor when she was 16. Her father was a Rotary governor then and as part of the club's Christmas activities, she joined the caroling at Hayco's house.
“She's the one,” thought Edward when he first saw Eleonor.
“It was not physical. For me, it transcended time. It was almost spiritual. It was like our aura just jived.”
“No other girl made me feel that way. I liked some girls, but these feelings were fleeting, very temporary. It was always like there was something missing. There was something that I couldn't find.”
Determined to meet her, Edward, who just graduated from college, spent six months finding out whose daughter she was. He also tried to find someone who could introduce him to her.
When Edward found out who she was, he was dismayed to learn that she was in Manila for college studies.
However, fate intervened, and brought them together when Eleonor's family ordered dried mangoes from the Haycos.
Edward's sister used to have a dried mango business and when he learned about the order, he immediately volunteered to deliver the goods.
He lost no time in calling Eleonor under the pretense of collecting payment for the dried mangoes.
But Eleonor refused to meet him when went to their house.
“I didn’t even know him. He's just a collector. I could just give the money to him,” Eleanor related.
When Eleonor did come out to meet him, she was accompanied by her younger brothers and sisters. He slyly asked the kids if they want to see a live crocodile at his parent's house.
Eleonor had to go with them.
“For me, that was the first date,” Edward said grinning.
Although he was already 21 at that time, he did not think Eleonor was too young for him. He thought the age difference was just right because his parents' ages were four years apart.
But Eleanor found him too old. She realized later that four years was just right because girls mature faster.
Edward pursued her with flowers and letters every day while she was studying in Manila.
“There were lots of long distance phone calls and I went to Manila every other week to court her,” Edward said.
Halfway into their relationship, Eleonor readily agreed to shift her course from architecture to business management on Edward's request so she could help him in his business.
“I think when I shifted, that was the time I thought he must be the one for me because I could not imagine changing my course and career in life for anyone else,” she said.
Edward not only pursued Eleonor. He also courted her family and her friends.
Wherever they went, Edward brought Eleonor's family and friends; this brought them closer.
Both still remember the date they became a couple ---Oct. 16, 1983 at 6:16 p.m. He was Eleonor's first serious boyfriend.
“We were still a couple, but I was already asking for her hand in marriage,” Edward said.
Edward proposed marrriage in a penthouse bar at the Century Sheraton Park but being of Chinese descent, the two were engaged according to Chinese tradition in December 1984. They were married June 1985 at the Sacred Heart church in Cebu CIty.
Following tradition, the man's family goes to the house of his girlfriend to ask her hand in marriage.
The man offers a dowry and both families mark the occasion with a tea ceremony, and an exchange of medallions, bracelets, watches, rings, and clothing.
“It's like preparing for a new life because when a Chinese girl marries, she cannot bring her own things so her husband-to-be has to provide. When she gets married, she brings with her the things her husband gave her during their engagement,” Eleonor said.
In their years of marriage, and even when they were still dating, they never had a major fight.
Edward attributes this to their peace-loving personalities. “Dili mi mangita ug samok (We avoid trouble).”
“We were raised as mature and responsible individuals so when we relate to each other, it's always in an adult-to-adult relationship,” Edward said.
The Haycos have also learned to share each other's passion. Edward, for instance, embraced Eleanor's passion for ballroom dancing. As years passed, Edward’s interest intensified until he founded the Dancesport Team Cebu City and continues to lead the growth of dancesports for which Cebu athletes have been reaping awards in national and international events.
(The basement of the Hayco’s residence in Beverly Hills was converted into a mirrored dance studio for the couple and their students. )
The Haycos have four daughters, Edelaine Florence, 22, Ericka Venice, 20, Evangeline Marie, 18 and Evonne Valerie, 9.
Asked how they see themselves in the future, Edward said “we will eventually grow old and have gray hair together, rock our chairs, and grow old with our grandchildren.”
The Haycos have prepared for it by having a room on the ground floor of their home in Beverly Hills.
“When we're 60, 70, 80, that's the room where we will retire. If we can still walk, we’ll sit here and look at the sunrise together,” Edward said.
For Eleonor, the most memorable gift from her husband was a set of two rings, which once linked becomes one ring.
Her husband describes love as a “constant evolution.”
“You need to keep on recreating it constantly. From romance, it shifts to commitment. Then, it shifts to perseverance, then it shifts to sacrifice. You need to keep on adjusting and adjusting and adjusting,” he said.
“Some see it as hard work, some, as a challenge that you need to hurdle, some as a problem, while some see it as the spice of life.”
Eleonor agreed: “People think love is all flowers, all roses. But as time goes on, you have to cope with the different stages.”
She said “most couples nowadays only hurdle the first two or three stages. They eventually lose the perseverance and sacrifice.”
According to Edward, it takes a lot of soul searching and deep insight to persevere and to persist. He said it's not easy these days to make marriage work.
“Marriage is like reading a book, a suspense thriller. Every chapter is an entirely new chapter. It's so difficult to predict, so difficult to anticipate, so you just have to adjust and bend without breaking.”
