MANILA, Philippines – Former Ilocos Sur Rep. Ronald Singson admitted that he still loves his ex-girlfriend, actress Lovi Poe.

In an interview with Wilson Lee Flores, which appeared in The Philippine Star on Sunday, Singson said he and Poe remain “very good” friends.

“Mapagmahal ako. Whether magkatuluyan kami or hindi, mahal ko pa rin si Lovi,” he said.

Singson said their relationship was just in its “infancy stage” when he was arrested at Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok airport on July 11, 2010 after airport authorities found 6.67 grams of pure cocaine in his possession.

Singson was sentenced to 18 months in prison in Hong Kong, which had been reduced to one year due to good behavior. He was released last month.

“We had no opportunity to really strengthen the foundations of what we had. I think we were just four months together then. We’re now good friends. We still take time to really talk,” he said.

“We’ve agreed it’s better for us to be friends muna. We’re trying to figure out our relationship, because we haven’t had time to spend with each other kasi busy siya ngayon,” he added.

Singson said Poe visited him numerous times when he was still out on bail in Hong Kong. She also visited him twice in prison.

“Minahal ko lang siya ng todo. I really felt so bad with what had happened to us when our relationship was just in its infancy stage, so I felt I was robbed of the opportunity to make our relationship grow,” he said.

Life in prison

In the interview, Singson also talked about his life in prison in Hong Kong.

Singson said he was incarcerated at the Tung Tao Correctional Institute in Stanley, Hong Kong and that most of his fellow inmates there were jailed for white-collar crimes such as bribery.

He described the facility as “decent.”

“We lived in dormitories and their prison dorms are nicer than even our military barracks here in the Philippines. In our dorm, which had a capacity of 40 inmates or 20 double-deck beds, we were only 18 inmates there during my stay so each one of us had one double-deck bed each. The other bed we used to put our things. We had cabinets, hot showers, clean toilets, everything was so clean. Hong Kong is big on human rights and they’re really First World in standards,” he said.

He said all prisoners had to work and that he assigned at the tailoring station, making bedsheets for government hospitals. They worked from 9 to 11 a.m. and again from 2 to 4 p.m.

During his stay at the prison, he said he managed to read 40 books, including the “Millennium” trilogy of Stieg Larsson, as well as novels by James Clavell and Dan Brown.

He said he didn’t have a lot of friends in jail as most of them do not speak English.

“The hardest thing for an inmate is if you keep thinking of the outside world, it’s depressing. So masama if mabakante utak mo. The secret to survival is to keep yourself busy and your mind entertained always. It was not a good experience,” he said.