A friend offers testimony on Poe’s character

GRACE POE has been a friend since first-year high school. Lately, I have seen her only occasionally due to her busy schedule, though she remains a close friend to this day.

I am outraged at such brazen fiction as the rumors claiming she took drugs and was in rehab. Knowing her so well for over 30 years, I can vouch with certainty that she never was or has been in rehab for taking drugs or drinking too much.

In high school, she certainly had her share of harmless fun with classmates and teachers. And I remember having shared San Miguel beer with her and her father during a dinner party at their house. Being beside the now-legendary Fernando Poe Jr. made me so nervous I spilled my drink. But drinking to excess is not Grace’s style. She has always been a class act, doing things with a high degree of discipline and, yes, grace.

When I briefly stayed with her in Fairfax, Virginia, in 1999, she was simply wife and mother (of two at the time) who kept a neat and tidy home for her family. Her own children, who are so well adjusted, are the best proof of an upright parent who does not and never did abuse drugs.

I suspect this fiction is the handiwork of a candidate so desperate to become president, but cannot find anything substantial against Grace, and who is himself drowning in corruption charges.

Despite all the privileges afforded her, being the only daughter of the “King of Philippine Movies” and Susan Roces, she remains simple in her choices and lifestyle. This doesn’t lend to excessive spending on expensive drugs and alcohol.

—VICTORIA MENDOZA-FRITZ, Quezon City