This interview of National Artist Nora Aunor was hilarious. Her stories about her drunkeness sounded familiar—because she was me or I am her when drunk. We could’ve hit it off.

I am not easily star-struck but there are only a few people who I asked to be photographed with while getting tongue-tied: goalkeeper Neil Etheridge, long-time Purefoods basketball player Alvin Patrimonio, and actress Nora Aunor.

When I was still with my old TV station, I was covering/live tweeting the fundraiser our broadcast company did for victims of Typhoon Pablo (was it?). There were celebrities manning the phones, performing, hosting, etc. I didn’t care much for them so I just continued to work. But when Nora Aunor came in, I was star-struck. I stopped whatever I was doing and watched her open her bag and pull out wads of cash in thousand peso bills. I heard her say, pasensya na, konti lang to. Kawawa naman sila…

My heart melted. She was so humble and shy. I got shy, too. I would have wanted to have taken a photo with her. She was just literally at arm’s length. I would’ve bragged to my long-dead father and his mother that I had a photo taken with their idol. Well, technically Nora was my grandma’s idol and my father… It was just transference. I would have wanted to have a chat with her, I wanted to tell her that my lola, until her dying day, was a solid Noranian.

But I didn’t. I was just too shy. I should’ve.

Now she’s gone.