Gracious farewell for slain Japanese mom

ONLY gracious words were said in yesterday’s final rites for slain Japanese diving instructor Kotoka Kanjili Denila who was cremated yesterday.

Her Japanese parents thanked everyone present, including the family of Kotoka’s jailed husband Dexter, for being at the ceremony in the chapel Rolling Hills Funeral Homes in Mandaue City.

Yasuo Kanjili, in a speech, said that while they grieve over the violent death of their daughter, a victim of murder, they have accepted it.

“In her 32 years on earth, 10 of it was spent in Cebu because she loved diving. She loved the sea,” Yasuo said in Nippongo.

The parents said they were happy that she had left a 9-month-old daughter who would constantly remind them of her.

After his speech, Yasuo asked everybody to light a senko, a traditional candle offered to Japan’s dead, and to offer a prayer. This was followed by a traditional Filipino rite of offering white flowers to the dead.

Her parents will bring Kotoka’s ashes back to Japan while the baby will be raised by her in-laws in the Philippines.

Kotoka was stabbed dead allegedly by her husband after an argument at dawn of Sunday. They were married for almost a year.

Dexter is facing parricide charges and is detained at the Lapu-lapu City police jail.

The victim’s parents , Yasuo and Yoko, and Dexter’s mother, Nemia, and brothers Darwin and Derryl quietly wept at the chapel.

Japanese Consul Yoshiaki Hata and the lawyer of Kotoka’s family were present.

The Denila family is from Tagum, Davao del Norte.

The two families have agreed to support each other in raising the couple’s daughter. Because the Kanjili couple are already old and raising a child in Japan is expensive, they have agreed that the baby will be raised by the Denila family “so that Kotoka will be happy seeing her daughter growing old in a better life,” Yasuo said. /Correspondent Fe Marie D. Dumaboc