‘Spare my dead brother’

MALINAO, ALBAY, Philippines—Malinao Mayor Alice Morales on Friday expressed outraged that her dead brother, former Makati city engineer Nelson Morales, was being linked to the alleged rigging of contracts for building projects in Makati.

The mayor said her family was hurting from the “unfair” accusations, particularly since her brother can no longer defend himself.

“I am hurt and so is the whole family. My brother is resting in peace and they dragged him into this controversy. How can he defend himself when is he dead?” she said.

At a hearing last Thursday in the Senate investigation into the allegedly overpriced P2.28-billion Makati parking building, Mario Hechanova, the former vice chair of the Makati bids and awards committee, testified that the bidding for the controversial building and for other infrastructure projects in Makati were routinely rigged on the orders of Vice President Jejomar Binay whose instructions were allegedly carried out by Nelson.

Triumvirate of corruption

Reacting to Hechanova’s testimony, Binay’s spokeperson Cavite Gov. Jonvic Remulla said that there was a “triumvirate of corruption” that oversaw the rigging of the bidding for projects in Makati consisting of Hechanova, former Makati Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado and the late city engineer Nelson Morales.

Alice said her brother served Makati City for 28 years and while she did  not know much about how he went about doing his job as the city engineer, she said she knew him to be an honest and upright person.

“Please show respect. He has been buried and now they want to dig him out of his grave. We never got justice for his death and now they are making  him a part of an anomalous project,”  the mayor said in Filipino.

Nelson, then 55, was ambushed on Sept. 7, 2012, in his Malinao hometown where he was planning to run for mayor in the May 2013 elections. Alice, the vice mayor at the time, ran for mayor and won.

At the time of his death, Nelson was the chair of the Albay provincial chapter of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), the party headed by Binay. Nelson left the Makati government service after Binay’s  son, Junjun, became mayor in 2010.

Nelson was a known trusted subordinate of Binay when the latter was mayor of Makati. Binay, who visited the wake of Nelson, publicly mourned his  death and called on the police to immediately find whoever it was who masterminded the  crime.

Politics blamed

Alice stressed that the killing of her brother had nothing to do with the controversial Makati infrastructure projects. She said her family strongly  believed that he was killed because of politics.

She said justice still had to be served in her brother’s case as the family believes there was a “bigger person” behind the three men who shot her brother.

Alice was with her brother and witnessed him being gunned down by three gunmen just outside a church in the town’s Barangay Estancia.

One of the gunmen, Christian Saysay, then 22, was found dead at the Josefina Belmonte Memorial District Hospital in Ligao City a few hours after the killing of Nelson with a gunshot wound in the abdomen believed to have been fired by Raul Capitan, Nelson’s security aide who was also wounded in the attack.

The two other suspects are now in jail in Tabaco, Albay. But even though the  suspects were already behind bars, the mayor said justice has not been served because the mastermind remains free.

“I’m hoping very soon the major perpetrator will be caught. If not, I believe in karma,” she said.

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