MANILA, Philippines—Weeks before he was killed, Larry Moralla, a barangay (village) councilor in Caloocan City, received a text message from an unfamiliar number which read: “Mag-ingat ka, ikaw na susunod (Be careful, you’re next).”
Moralla’s wife, Jonalyn, said the incident happened in March after her husband and six other councilors filed a malversation case against another barangay official. She added that her husband tried to call the texter but by that time, the phone had already been turned off.
At 8 p.m. on Wednesday, the 28-year-old Moralla was shot dead as he was walking home from a barangay meeting.
Supt. Ferdinand del Rosario, the Caloocan police investigation chief, said the victim who was with his wife, was approached by two men, one of whom shot him with a gun armed with a silencer.
Jonalyn was injured after a stray bullet hit her in the hand. “I didn’t see much (during the attack). I just remember my right hand feeling like a stone had been thrown at it and I told him, ‘Daddy, it hurts.’ That’s when I saw him lying on the ground,” she said.
While Del Rosario told the Inquirer that they were still trying to determine the motive for the killing, Jonalyn was convinced her husband’s death was related to politics.
She said Larry, a first-term councilor, had been a vocal critic of how barangay funds were being used. This led him and six other councilors to file malversation, perjury and corruption charges against barangay treasurer Virginia Rosaruso in March.
The first hearing was held on May 2 and Moralla was scheduled to appear in the second one on May 23.
“He just wanted to make a difference. He was giving himself one and a half years after which he wanted to become a policeman. He had already passed the test,” she said.—With Mark Ersan Ate