‘Missing’ beauty queen turns up in Tacloban

CATBALOGAN, Samar — She was not missing after all.

Eighteen-year-old Pearly Dawn Sabarre, a former Mutya han Samar, called up Bombo Radyo Tacloban yesterday to tell her family that she was fine, allaying fears that she might have been abducted.

"I did this as a sort of protest," she said, without elaborating. She said she was in the Tacloban City proper.

Sources said Pearly Dawn, daughter of noted ballet artist Odon Sabarre, was being groomed as a television and movie actress by a director who saw her perform a Hawaiian dance number during the 72nd birthday party of former First Lady Imelda Romualdez-Marcos in Tolosa, Leyte last July 2.

"I don’t like to be an actress," one of the sources quoted her as saying.

Earlier, her father sought the help of media, the police and the National Bureau of Investigation in locating her who, he said, had been missing since Sept. 14.

He and their relatives contacted her boyfriend in Tacloban, her friends in Catbalogan, Samar and townmates in Calbiga, also in Samar, but their efforts to locate her proved futile.

Her "disappearance" created a stir in Samar because of her being a local beauty queen. She was also featured as "Face of the Week" of The STAR’s Star Mode section on Aug. 22, 1999.