By: Jullie Y. Daza
AT 2 o’clock in the morning, roused from bed with cops knocking at the door and shooting up her house and her parents’, the perfectly named Nova Princess, aka Vice Mayor Parajinog of Ozamiz City, was wide awake, keenly alert to what was happening, looking nonplussed but telegenic even without a trace of makeup.
Granddaughter of the dreaded Kuratong Baleleng’s top gun who was the nemesis of a certain Panfilo Lacson, Princess is the pretty, precious daughter of the mayor identified as a narcopolitician by the President. What genes she must have, what a fascinating study she would make for those wishing to write her biography based on biology and genealogy! How often do we come across a 30-something as hardboiled and fearless, she who would swallow a slip of paper while grappling with two powerfully built policewomen, each of whom could easily have overpowered her with one look, as the PNP’s videographer continued recording the proceedings.
The petulant Princess glared back, fought back, but was unable to swallow the paper, so she crumpled it before reluctantly yielding it to her tormentors. It wasn’t a fair fight, two against one! TV closeups showed a column of words opposite peso amounts which police said could represent dealings in drugs. But her lawyer, an excellent choice in the person of Atty. Ferdinand Topacio – excellent, if the client needs an ebullient celebrity lawyer who can outtalk police, interrogators, prosecutors – dismissed the value of that piece of evidence. “It doesn’t mean anything,” he said.
Apparently, Atty. Topacio is used to affluent clients who have the habit of eating bits of paper for the heck of it, they’re meaningless anyway. Who knows what unconscious mannerisms VIPs exhibit when they’re in bad company. We do know that, like another princess of a recently infamous media cycle by the name of Jeane Napoles, Nova Princess had the habit of posting on her FB pictures of her carrying her “aspirational” handbags, a parade of them costing about R3M each.
Good to know that whether living in a mansion on a hill or in a condo in New York, princesses aspire to consume only harmless objects like paper and handbags.