NEPOMUCENO
The show—along with the quest for justice—must go on.
Comedian Willie Nepomuceno admits that the Jan. 9 shooting in Marikina City that wounded his grandson and another teenager has deeply affected him, but maintains that it should not manifest in his various stage personas.
Nepomuceno said something purely “personal” like the incident that nearly killed Sean Gabriel Nepomuceno, 16, should not change the way he performs as a veteran impersonator of presidents and other VIPs.
“Whatever bitterness I have, I should be able to keep it to myself,” Nepomuceno told the Inquirer in an interview on Saturday.
“It’s like that famous theater adage: The show must go on,” he said, stressing that he has a “duty” to perform as an artist. “What fault does the audience have? They went there to see you and have a good laugh.”
Still, the line between the personal and the professional can be blurred sometimes.
More than a week after the incident, Nepomuceno had somehow managed to come up with a punch line in connection with the ongoing police investigation, for example.
Since the first suspect arrested for the shooting refused to squeal on his two other cohorts, he said, “I’m willing to donate a karaoke machine. Then we let him sing (police slang for confessing or cooperating with an interrogator).”
He was referring to Mark Bercilla, one of the four suspects. Another had been identified as Arestes Ronar, who remains at large.
When reporters asked him for updates on the case, Nepomuceno said, he also managed to crack a joke or two.
He would tell them: “I’m sorry if I sound like Janet Napoles, but I really don’t know.” It was a quick parody of the alleged pork barrel scam mastermind and the way she answered during a Senate inquiry.
Nepomuceno has also found himself joining an entirely different cast—that of crusaders for justice, like members of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption. He appeared last week at VACC press conference in Quezon City.
A social commentator in his own funny way, Nepomuceno said that despite what happened to his grandson, he doesn’t necessarily agree with recurring calls for the restoration of capital punishment in the country.
“They (VACC) said it was the biggest deterrent (to crime) and that death penalty should be brought back, but I disagreed,” he recalled. “I’m grateful to the VACC and I really respect their passion.”
A person with a criminal mind knows the potential consequences of his actions and is willing to put everything at stake in committing a crime even with the death penalty in place, he said.
For him, crime prevention still boils down to effective “police presence.”