The Aladina Foundation, which he presides, celebrates 15 years helping children with cancer.
He has major projects in the Virgen del Rocío hospital in Seville and in the Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona, in addition to fighting to create the Casa Aladina.
The latest campaign of the Aladina Foundation maintains that you should never lose your smile. Are you sure you haven't lost it? I've lost it because it has prevented us from attending hospitals and we have had to reinvent ourselves. Children with cancer are already isolated. Human warmth is not the same as online contact. We have a program called
Together from Home
and we do therapies with the children.
That is why we did this campaign in which it was the children who encouraged us.
They are experts at having a hard time.
What is Casa Aladina going to consist of? It is my life's dream.
Aladina is very involved with the Paul Newman camps and finances many seriously ill Spanish children to attend one of them.
When they return, the parents say that they have returned their children as before the illness.
I would like to have a house where children and adolescents can go during the day to do therapy.
That we are not limited only to hospitals.
It would be a magic house. How has the coronavirus affected cancer treatments? It has not affected the treatments, but it has affected the mood of the patient.
It is not the same when there is no volunteering or when your two parents cannot be together.
Have more children died of cancer due to Covid? No.
What politician would you invite to a hospital to see the suffering of these children up close? I would invite Pablo.
To Pablo Iglesias? Yes, because the criticisms of Amancio Ortega have hurt me a lot.
I am apolitical.
But Amancio Ortega's machines have saved the lives of many children.
In any civilized and sophisticated country, philanthropy goes hand in hand with what Healthcare may need.
Donations must be made.
I also pay my taxes and make a lot of donations.
It is not something incompatible. Mr. Iglesias has to understand the seriousness and the fierce enemy that is childhood cancer.
Right now we are going to build the entire Vall d 'Hebron plant in Barcelona with two other Catalan foundations.
We have made the entire plant of Virgen del Rocío and the ICU of the Niño Jesús hospital, all with private donations? Aladina does it.
It is impossible for Public Health to have quality hospitals with what there is.
Any politician knows that better than I do.
Philanthropy has to be at the service of having better Health.
It happens in all the sophisticated European and Anglo-Saxon countries.
Without going into politics, don't scare the big donor.
And that has done a lot of damage. Have these statements by Iglesias been able to make donors think twice?
I understand that a politician has to act according to his beliefs, but in the face of the life and death of a child, no.
No kidding we could have had those machines in the next ten years.
These machines radiate a child's tumor without affecting the body.
Look what a miracle!
They cost 60 million and to be able to buy them, Health would have to park other priorities.
They have been a blessing.
Surely, I will regret everything I have said, but I have lost too many children at the bedside, in other countries they are much more used to philanthropy than in Spain.
Why? When the crisis in Haiti passed, Spain was the first or second country to act on volunteer issues.
What happens is that we lack sophistication when it comes to starting it up.
Donations should be much more fiscally incentivized.
Spain is one of the most generous countries I know.
The human quality of the nurses would win Eurovision. People complain that Spanish politics surpasses any Netflix series. Honestly, it's
Game of Thrones
.
We have a Caesar salad that is getting more and more seasonings on it.
Lately it's a lot of fun to read the press.
How do you see the duel between Iglesias and Ayuso? The new season of
Game of Thrones
looks very good.
My opinion is that it will be very close.
Mr. Iglesias is very capable and it will be a great tennis match, you are a great defender of the monarchy.
Is Spain being unfair to Don Juan Carlos? We live in a democracy that we did not have for a long time.
The institution of the Monarchy unites Spain rather than separates it.
I can only value that Spain is a great country and part of that responsibility comes from what the Monarchy has done.
But I understand that there may be dissatisfied people.
You have nothing to reproach the King Emeritus? I do not feel entitled because I do not put myself in that position.
You were a successful singer for a few years.
Why did you decide to quit music? Because some intelligence was left in my brain.
He was more famous than successful.
Fame has a very great danger.
Did they know you more for your private life than for your work? I had no privacy, which affected my environment.
I was getting married and the marriage fell apart two months before my wedding.
Running through the park, I saw a boy with his mother, who pointed at me and said: "Look, Mom, that's a celebrity."
Didn't say a singer.
I decided to change my life and started doing television production.
I was lucky that my first series
¡Ala ... Dina!
it was a success for many years.
Your movie 'What Really Matters' hit Netflix in the midst of a pandemic, it was a miracle.
It is a 100% charity film, which has already been sensational at the box office in 16 countries.
In the United States, without any promotion, it was number 1 on Netflix.
In English, the movie is called
The healer
, which means the healer.
I did not give it that name in Spain because it seems that your wallet is going to be stolen.
But, in the end, that name in English and that it was a movie for the family was a great aspirin in the middle of this crisis.
What film projects are you involved in? I'm in my biggest project called 11%.
It is a script that I wrote with Ronald Bass that has an Oscar for
Rain Man
and it is a beautiful and very ambitious fable.
Do you direct it? Everything I do, I write, direct and produce it because if not, sometimes it doesn't come out.
I am a producer because I have no other choice.
What's left of your Don Juan past? Well, I miss it because I don't hook up much anymore.
When you were a singer, they came to meet you.
I'm a little shy.
I have learned a precious thing that men have to explain to us: you have to pamper your relationships a lot.
It is not just the conquest;
there has to be a respect and a love that go hand in hand.
This old Don Juan has become very philosopher.
Did you make many women suffer?
But many times I was motivated by the beauty of a woman, but not her heart.
Now the heart of a woman dazzles me more.
Your father, Plácido Arango, was a great businessman and philanthropist.
What was the main lesson he gave you? Do not put any personal interest before the rest.
My father was a correct man of heart and demeanor, with a great fang and a fighter.
The three brothers have the same philosophy: honesty.
Does being a millionaire print character? Print responsibility. How do you make money not corrupt you? Realizing that you are lucky.
It overwhelms me to think why I have been so lucky in life and others have not.
So I got involved with children with cancer.
I go out of my way for others.
I plan to die without money.
Have you imagined your life if you had been poor? Yes and I dedicate a lot to helping the poor.
I have great admiration for them and I know that they are better than me.
After contemplating so much pain, how do you manage to protect yourself when you get home? I'm lucky to have a lot of faith.
I always say that I believe in Harry Potter.
Mine is tremendous.
I am convinced that these children who are leaving us are in a wonderful place.
Aladina takes care of the 20% that does not survive, which is the world statistic.
I have seen miracles.
I say it consistently.
I am certain that there is something more.
I cry with my people, but I can continue because the next child deserves my greatest smile and energy. What miracles do you remember? Being in the ICU saying goodbye to the child and going to his First Communion two years later.
And magical things that I do not tell because no one would believe me. What advice can be given to parents who have lost a child? There is no consolation or manual.
It is the greatest sacrifice they can ask of you.
I have been 20 years old and I have the same stupid face when it comes to helping.
Aladina brings these parents together with a psycho-oncologist and we have a year-long duel, where an incredible well-guided synergy is created to bring those parents forward.
The psychologist Inma Puig affirms that we are in the society of well-being, well-being and well-appearing. That has always happened.
Hundreds of thousands of people who are doing extraordinary things have come to light at Covid.
I like to notice the good.
So are you one of those who think that the pandemic has brought out the good things in people? When a child dies of cancer, no one in the family stays the same.
It's like they take away all the furniture in the house and you have to start from scratch.
The Covid has been this.
A
reset
of society.
I'm worried about the amount of snogging and hugs that will happen when all this is over.
Have you betrayed the child in you? For a long time, yes.
I had him a bit forgotten.
But I am in a moment where I have a lot of peace and my priorities are very clear.
I can be very effective sharing many things.
Now, Paquito and I are at peace.
What are you addicted to? To always have a creative project underway.
I went on a long vacation to the Caribbean and
Filomena
caught me.
Well, how lucky that
I caught
you in the Caribbean. I was seven days and instead of enjoying an additional week of vacation, I was eating the jar because I did not get a project that I wanted to put on. on going.
I have to learn the happiness of doing nothing.
What grade would you give your life? People say to me: "Paco, when you die you're going to go to heaven."
And I always tell them that I'm not joking because I'm a disaster, but that a child is going to sneak me out the back door.
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See links of interest
Work calendar
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