Nora Aunor: What next?

I was in Los Angeles when Nora Aunor was apprehended at the City of Angels’ International airport (LAX) for allegedly carrying with her eight grams of methampethamine hydrochloride or shabu and drug paraphernalia in her carry-on luggage. The funny thing, however, is that I learned about the incident only when I called up a friend in Manila who was watching the April 2 edition of Startalk, which I missed because I had to fly to the Arctic Circle for a break before Holy Week and later to California to rework my immigration papers.

What was even funnier was that the California-based camp of Nora Aunor was supposedly trying to get in touch with me in Manila – when all along we were all just in one state. Unfortunately, the technologically behind person that I am, my cell phone is not one of those that may be used outside of the Philippines and so we failed to communicate with each other.

But I tried to get as much informations as I could with regard to the case and spoke to people who were with Nora prior to that incident. One of the people I got in touch with was Lally Aldeguer, who – along with sister Terry – is a respected performer in California communities.

Discussing with her the case, Lally got a bit upset when she found out that there were talks about her being with Nora during the airport incident. No, she’s not necessarily distancing herself from Nora at this point. She merely wants to set the record straight that she was not with the superstar during the apprehension because that is the truth. Two weeks before that, however, they were together discussing Nora’s participation in a Mother’s Day presentation the Aledeguer sisters are putting up at the Baldwin Performing Arts Center in Bakersfield in early May.

However, Lally absolutely has no idea of the events that transpired after her talk with Nora and remains clueless to the exact details of what really happened at the LAX airport on the evening of March 30.

Actually, very few people know the real story regarding this new ugly chapter in Nora’s life because she and her camp are not talking – and for good reason that we should all understand because of the legalities involved. (One wrong statement from them may be used against Nora during the litigation of her case.)

Unfortunately, their keeping mum on the incident has also spawned various speculations about what really happened. There is, for instance, the issue of the $10,000 bail money that Nora had to fork out – an amount she will never get back.

One source in Los Angeles said it was a restaurant in San Francisco (where Nora is set to perform) that sent the bail money, but that may not necessarily be true.

What horrifies the people in Nora’s camp are reports saying that it was the Philippine government that sent over the bail money to the superstar. Absolutely not true – say Albert Sunga and Vonnel Mirandilla, two of Nora’s trusted friends and supporters here in Manila. The Arroyo administration – they want to stress – has not even gotten in touch with Nora Aunor after the incident.

The bail money could have come from Nora Aunor’s own bank account because she is not really destitute there – as some of her detractors would want the public to believe. At $20,000 per show, surely she must have money of her own.

And no, she was not handcuffed and definitely not kept behind bars during her detention at the Los Angeles Police Department in Van Nuys.

Before I left LA the other day, I found out that Nora had returned to San Francisco where she had previously bought a four-bedroom house that she now occupies. (Many years ago, she also bought a house in San Diego, but she had already given this to her sister Tita.)

Somebody close to Nora (and who has spoken to her) says that the superstar is basically doing fine and is currently attending to her showbiz commitments in the West Coast. There is one statement, however, that she tells close friends: "I may have done some stupid things in the past, but I am not that stupid to do that kind of thing" (referring to the drug incident at the airport).

She is set to fly back to Los Angeles a few weeks from now to attend her hearing at the Airport Courthouse. Her kids Lotlot and Ian de Leon would want to be with their mother in the US at this critical period of her life, except that their visas have expired.

Although she is facing a felony charge, a lot of people I spoke to in Los Angeles believe that she would not be sent to the slammer.

If proven guilty – and she hasn’t been yet so let us not be condemning – she may just be ordered to do community service, which means she may be asked to pick up trash along the highway or perform other chores for the state. Another probability is that she may be sent to rehab. The worst thing that may happen to her is deportation.

You have to understand that this is her first offense and so the court may be easy on her.