Few things in the Philippine entertainment industry are as powerful as a love team.
Put two actors together, give them a few scenes, a catchy tandem name, a fandom, and enough projects to make it difficult to imagine one without the other.
But what happens when the pairing that felt permanent suddenly isn’t?
Two stars, one phenomenon
Love teams have long been a fixture of Philippine entertainment, with stars being packaged together across television shows, films, advertisements, mall shows, and other appearances.
The bigger the love team gets, the bigger the world their fans build around them.
Think KathNiel, JaDine, LizQuen, or AlDub. These pairings were never simply about putting two actors in the same frame. When the pairing works, fans can become deeply invested the actors and the relationship they portray.
Researchers have described love teams as a “singular, most consistent component of the mainstream film industry,” with roots stretching back to the early years of Philippine cinema.
Even the term “love team” is so distinctly Filipino that even Wikipedia defines it as a Philippine media term.
In an interview, writer Vanessa Valdez called love teams a cultural phenomenon in the Philippines.
“[Love teams] reflects how we view marriage, I think. Marami pa rin sa mga Pilipino na naniniwala na when you get married, panghabambuhay ‘yan; isang tao lang ‘yan. So nare-reflect ‘yan sa bakit ka sumusuporta (sa) isang love team at gusto mo sila na lang forever and ever, whether mag-jowa sila sa totoong buhay o hindi,” she said.
Another study echoed Valdez’s sentiment, noting that while love teams may draw audiences in through their stories and on-screen personas, their familiarity and relatability can make these pairings feel real enough that audiences become deeply invested in them.
That attachment is part of what makes Filipino fandom so powerful. And that is perhaps why there is a certain kind of heartbreak that only a love-team fan understands.
When forever has an expiration date
In a realistic world, forever isn’t promised to every couple that has ever existed. Love teams are no exception to this rule, no matter how carefully they built the illusion of great love and permanence.
KathNiel, JaDine, and LizQuen are reminders of that.
Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla ended their relationship in 2023 after more than a decade together, while James Reid and Nadine Lustre parted ways in 2020. Liza Soberano and Enrique Gil, meanwhile, had gone their separate ways years before their breakup was confirmed in 2025.
No love team stays frozen forever. Actors grow, careers change, and projects end. New opportunities come along.
That is where the rigodon begins.
Like the traditional dance, the partners change and the positions shift. While such “shuffling” was once unimaginable, recent years have shown that even the most established love teams aren’t immune to change.
The industry has been doing this for decades. “When a love team does not work or no longer serves its purpose, studios simply move on, pair them with another, or manufacture another one,” Bolisay stated in his research.
In the 1980s, Gabby Concepcion and Sharon Cuneta became one of the country’s most iconic cinema pairings after Concepcion was previously paired with actress Snooky Serna. Years later, John Lloyd Cruz and Bea Alonzo became one of the industry’s biggest tandems, with Cruz later finding another successful pairing with Sarah Geronimo.
The reshuffling continued into the late 2010s. Actress-host Maine Mendoza was paired with Carlo Aquino for ‘Isa Pa With Feelings,’ while Alden Richards starred together with Kathryn Bernardo for ‘Hello, Love, Goodbye’ in the same year.
A study of AlDub Nation found that online and offline fan activities helped fans maintain their identities, both individually and as a group, even after Richards and Mendoza no longer appeared together in projects.
In other words, a love team can end without the fandom completely disappearing.
Maybe that’s the part fans don’t always realize: the end of a pairing doesn’t necessarily mean the end of what it meant to them.
Letting the actors dance
Ultimately, love teams are still part of a business built around entertainment. The actors aren’t only half of a tandem; they are artists with careers and aspirations of their own.
Some netizens and actors have already welcomed this shift.
Actors are allowed to outgrow their pairings. They’re allowed to take on different roles, work with different people, and build careers outside the tandem that made them famous.
A netizen welcomed the new pairings from 2019, saying the projects could help curb “toxic fanaticism” among fans and allow actors to grow beyond their previous love teams.
Actress Nadine Lustre, meanwhile, described the reshuffling of love teams as having “a different flavor and feels more collaborative.”
Maine Mendoza also pushed back against followers who were unhappy with her new pairing back in 2019, saying actors cannot keep working with the same person.
“This is really part of our work in (showbiz). We can’t just keep working with the same person again and again,” she said. “Eventually, the audience will understand that this is our chance to grow and explore as artists.”
In 2022, GMA actors Mikee Quintos and Dave Borneo similarly described the changing love-team partners as healthy because it allows actors to stretch their acting abilities and discover new ways of working.
“When it comes to working with a new love team mate, there are (new) collaborations. You’ll know (and discover) that she has this new idea and she tackles a scene (this way),” Borneo said.
Moving on to bigger and better things doesn’t have to mean forgetting. A love team can be important without having to last forever. Partners will change, projects will shift, and new tandems will take their place.
Fans don’t have to stop dancing alongside their favorite pairs. They just have to learn new dance moves and to enjoy new genres outside of their comfort ships.
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