Marcos meets with Degamo widow, other Senate witnesses
Pamplona Mayor Janice Degamo met with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (Photo from the Facebook page of the late Gov. Roel Degamo)
MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. met in Malacañang last week with Pamplona Mayor Janice Degamo, the widow of slain Negros Oriental Gov. Roel Degamo, and witnesses who had testified in a Senate hearing about violent incidents in the province.
“The president mainly inquired [about] the peace and order situation in Negros Oriental. That was his principal concern,” Presidential Communications Secretary Cheloy Garafil told reporters in a Viber message when asked for details about the Thursday meeting.
Photos posted on Degamo’s Facebook page showed Garafil, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin and Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla among the government officials who were also at the dinner meeting.
In her post, the Pamplona mayor thanked Marcos for the “very warm welcome” and for showing his concern for their province by agreeing to the meeting which she said was set up “at the last minute.”
‘Finds time’
“While attending to so many big concerns — economic welfare of the nation, international peace and order concerns, water [crisis], endless meetings etc., he finds time to look at how we are in Negros Oriental even if we are only but a dot in the bigger picture of the many concerns that needed the president’s attention,” Degamo said.
She added that she could not believe that the president was following the Senate hearings and was in fact looking forward to the next one.
“He has time for his children. He finds time to look at even small details that concerns his people,” she said.
According to her, she told Marcos that they would only ask him for help if they really needed it, adding: “We will not abuse the kindness of our beloved President.”
Degamo ended her post by thanking him and signing it “The Justice Fighters of Negros Oriental,” referring to the individuals who had testified about violence in the province before the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs chaired by Sen. Ronald dela Rosa.
Earlier plea
The committee is also looking into the killing of Governor Degamo and eight others in the province on March 4.
Authorities have tagged suspended Negros Oriental Rep. Arnolfo Teves Jr. as the main suspect in the governor’s murder, an allegation he has denied.
When she attended the hearing last week, Degamo said her husband would probably still be alive if the Senate and other government agencies had acted promptly on his earlier plea for help in stopping the worsening violence in the province, including several killings that witnesses had linked to the congressman.
She also told senators that the governor had recorded a video in which he supposedly pointed to his political rivals, Teves and his brother, former Negros Oriental Gov. Pryde Henry Teves, as the ones behind the threats to his life.
The congressman, who was out of the country on the day of the governor’s assassination, is serving a 60-day suspension because of his refusal to report for work in person at the House of Representatives, which imposed the penalty after his authority to travel expired a month ago.
Teves has refused to return home, citing threats to his life. To pressure him to return, the Department of Justice said that it would seek his designation and proscription as a “terrorist.”
