18-second video clip shows Roxas ‘warning’

Interior Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II and Tacloban Mayor Alfred Romualdez. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS

“You have to understand. You are a Romualdez and the President is an Aquino. If it’s not legalized, then OK you are in charge and we’ll help you then that’s it … (unintelligible) bahala na kayo sa buhay ’nyo  (laughter).”

It’s Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, in a blue polo shirt, talking. Seated across him is Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez, wearing an orange shirt.

The 18-second video was uploaded on YouTube by Jose Marie Gonzales on Tuesday afternoon. Gonzales’s daughter, Cristina, is married to Romualdez.

The video clip was supposedly a recording of a meeting between Roxas and Romualdez on Nov. 14, about a week after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” struck Eastern Visayas.

It was posted on YouTube around 2 p.m. By past 6, it had already generated more than 2,000 views.

Senate testimony

The video came amid exchanges between Romualdez and Roxas that erupted in the aftermath of the storm.

It also seemingly reinforced Romualdez’s claim before a joint congressional committee hearing in the Senate on Monday that Tacloban was deprived of government assistance because he was not an ally of the Aquino administration.

“The truth will set you free,” Gonzales, the mayor’s father-in-law, said on Facebook.

Gonzales said a memory card containing the video clip was left with his guard at Cinema Audio recording studio in San Juan late Monday afternoon.

“I thought it was just one of those projects that my clients often leave with my guard. When I viewed it, I was shocked,” he said on the phone.

Shocking

Gonzales said he was shocked by the words uttered by Roxas because “it matched what was said at the Senate hearing.”

Gonzales said he “suspected” it was sent to him “because Alfred is my son-in-law.”

Gonzales said he decided to upload the entire video clip on YouTube “to show the two sides.”

He said he examined the video before uploading it. “It looked like it was taken by an SLR camera. The person taking it was obviously standing, with the camera hanging from his neck,” he said.

Gonzales wondered why Roxas did not notice that the meeting was being recorded. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have said those things,” Gonzales said.

But some netizens complained that the 18-seconder did not tell the whole story.

“Sounds bad but it would be better if you upload the whole conversation to see the context from which the statement was made,” one netizen said—With a report from Denison Rey Dalupang

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