Prospects may have dimmed for actress Nora Aunor becoming National Artist, with President Aquino reportedly set to proclaim any time soon the new set of National Artists after almost half a year of delay.
According to high government sources, Aunor’s name is not in the list of new National Artists submitted to the President for his signing into a proclamation order. Malacañang has balked from elevating the actress into the honor because of “moral issues” against her, particularly her alleged drug use and her arrest in the United States several years ago over drug possession.
Aunor was among those elected to the Order of the National Artists by the joint boards of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) last September, according to sources in the cultural establishment.
But the election was not final.
The CCP-NCCA list was submitted to Malacañang for the President’s signing. Aside from Aunor who was voted as National Artist for Film and Broadcast Arts, elected were:
– Literature: poet Cirilo Bautista
– Architecture and Allied Art: Jose Maria Zaragoza
– Visual Arts: late “komiks” artist and novelist Francisco Coching
– Music: the late Francisco Feliciano
Except for Aunor, all of the artists in the CCP-NCCA list will be proclaimed by the President, sources said.
The original list had been reviewed by the Malacañang Honors Committee, which screens nominees for state honors like the National Artist Award and Presidential Medal of Merit.
The non-inclusion of the actress in the proclamation order of new National Artists would amount to a presidential veto of her election by the CCP-NCCA, which is allowed by the Supreme Court.
In its celebrated July 2013 decision voiding the proclamation by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of four National Artists who were not in the original list of the CCP-NCCA, the Supreme Court upheld Arroyo’s act of dropping composer Ramon Santos despite his election.
The high court said the election was a “nomination” and was “not binding” to the President and “only discretionary.”
But Arroyo’s inclusion of four artists not in the original list — komiks artist and B-movie director Carlo J. Caparas, theater artist Cecille Guidote Alvarez, architect Francisco Manosa, and fashion designer Jose “Pitoy” Moreno — was a “grave abuse of discretion” since the four did not pass muster in the nomination process set by the law on the selection of National Artists.
The court, however, did not find anything wrong with Arroyo dropping Santos from the list.
“By the power of control, the President had the authority to alter or modify or nullify or set aside such recommendation or power. It was well within the President’s power and discretion to proclaim all, or some or even none of the recommendees of the CCP and NCCA boards, without having to justify his or her action,” the high court ruled.
The rule is now being applied to Aunor, whose nomination is said to have caused some unease in certain sectors of Malacañang because of reports of her drug use and erratic behavior.
In 2005, Aunor was arrested for illegal drug possession in California. The case was dismissed by a Los Angeles court after she performed community service and underwent an 18-month drug rehabilitation program.
Photo from Jude Bautista Gallery
