MANILA, 3 April 2005 — Actress Nora Aunor is facing criminal charges in Los Angeles for possession of the banned methamphetamine hydrochloride, or shabu, the Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed yesterday.
Department spokesman Gilbert Asuque assured fans of the one of the country’s most popular actresses is being assisted by the Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles.
Aunor, whose real name is Nora Cabaltera Villamayor, was arrested late Wednesday after airport inspectors found 8 grams of shabu in her carry-on bag and a glass pipe wrapped in a T-shirt, an Associated Press report earlier said.
“Airport screeners stopped Aunor, who was flying to Oakland, and found the methamphetamine in a film container,” AP quoted the California paper Daily Breeze as saying.
The 51-year-old Aunor, known to her fans as “Superstar,” was released early Thursday after posting $10,000 bail, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. A court hearing was scheduled April 21.
Aunor has appeared in more than 170 films and recorded more than two dozen albums, including scores of hit singles.
In 1997, she won for best actress at the East Asia Film and Television Festival Awards in Penang, Malaysia.
On screen, she starred with leading men of her time, including Joseph Estrada, who became president in 1998 until he was ousted in a popular uprising in early 2001.
Aunor campaigned for Estrada, with whom she was romantically linked, even accompanying the then vice president in his visit to Jeddah in December 1996.
Aunor’s dramatic withdrawal of support for her friend in January 2001 amid an impeachment trial against Estrada at the Philippine Senate helped galvanize public support for the eventual collapse of the Estrada presidency.
After her failed try at politics — she lost badly in the gubernatorial election for Camarines Sur province in May 2001 — she returned to acting and won the best actress award at the 2004 International Festival of Independent Films in Brussels, Belgium.
Aunor, said to be a vendor in her youthful years at her hometown of Iriga in Camarines Sur, now spends much of her time in the United States and has a home in Linda Vista, several miles north of San Diego.
