INQUIRER file photo
“Stay out of my family’s affairs,” Genelyn Magsaysay said Sunday, referring to Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. whom she criticized for meddling with her family after the murder of her son.
Reading from a statement, Magsaysay lamented the violent killing of Ramgen Bautista, 23, her son by former Senator Ramon Revilla Sr., and the crime being pinned on her two younger children.
“What happened to us was very painful. My son died in a violent way, while my other children are being tagged as masterminds of this heinous crime,” Magsaysay said in Filipino. “I only ask for one thing and that is to stay away from my [family’s affairs].”
Without naming the senator, she said: “You don’t have the right to speak for and in behalf of my children because they are my children, not yours. If you want to talk, talk about your own children and not about my children.”
Magsaysay defended the decision of Ma. Ramona Bautista, 22, to leave the country which she said was her daughter’s “decision.” She said Ramona left out of fear.
Political campaign
Magsaysay questioned the motive of Revilla Jr. in bringing to the authorities her son, Ramon Joseph (RJ), 18, which she said appeared to be a political move. Two suspects identified Ramon Joseph, who is in police custody, and Ramona as those behind the murder of Ramgen, 23.
She noted that the elections were still far away and yet it seemed the political campaign had already started for the senator.
“Why does it seem that the senator has a grudge against my children, accusing them of this heinous act (Ramgen’s murder)?” Magsaysay asked. “Think about it.”
Revilla Jr.’s pronouncements that Ramona may have been involved in the killing of her brother as indicated by her flight did not sit well with Magsaysay.
She said her children were looking for their “elder [half-] brother to protect them and not pin them with the crime.”
Magsaysay appealed to the authorities to let the process take its due course starting with the preliminary investigation on Tuesday.
Ramona slipped out of the country on Friday for Hong Kong and she was believed to be heading for Istanbul where her husband is based.
She has been named by the police as one of the suspects in the killing of Ramgen. Investigators made this conclusion after witnesses attested to seeing Ramona during the time of the crime.
Ramgen’s girlfriend Janelle Manahan, who was shot but survived the attack, recounted seeing Ramona in the room as the victims were being attacked.
Ramgen’s personal assistant, Ronaldo Angcajas, claimed that he saw Ramona and RJ leave the house on foot. Two security guards of BF Homes in Parañaque City also saw the Bautista siblings leaving the subdivision.
Possible state witness
Magsaysay stood firm on her statement that Ramona had “direct personal knowledge of the incident,” which could make her daughter a “state witness, not an alleged brutal killer.”
Both Ramona and RJ are free to do what they wish at this point since no case has been filed against them, she added.
RJ, who was arrested on Wednesday last week, is being held at the Parañaque City Jail. His lawyer Dennis Manzanal questioned the detention before the prosecutor’s office.
Magsaysay said she had the sole right to sue since she was the immediate relative of the victim. She said she was surprised that “someone filed a case and my children are being accused of it.”
But the police, in explaining that murder is a public crime, said they have jurisdiction over the case, hence the complaint before the prosecutor’s office.
Revilla Jr. denied Magsaysay’s claim that he was using the resulting controversy surrounding Ramgen’s death as publicity for his political plans.
“What kind of publicity is this? Is this good publicity? Our entire family has been affected negatively by all this,” the senator said.
Not a reelectionist
“I’m not a reelectionist. I’m a senator until 2016. I am not benefiting from the controversy at all,” he said. “Who wants this kind of publicity?”
The intrigues are doing more harm than good, Revilla Jr. said. “We are not doing anything bad to society. We just want to protect our father’s name, which he worked hard to build for so many years.”
The senator also pointed out that no one had asked Magsaysay and her family to move out of their home in BF Parañaque, contrary to claims she made in an interview with GMA 7 aired on Sunday.
“It’s their house,” he said, referring to Magsaysay and her children’s Parañaque address. “It’s under their name. They were not thrown out of the house,” Revilla Jr. told the Inquirer in a phone interview Sunday.
In the face of the political intrigues, Portia Ilagan, spokesperson of Revilla Jr., questioned Magsaysay’s credibility.
“We just have to take her statements for what they are. She herself admitted that she has been depressed. That she’s sick. The people around her say that she is under medication,” Ilagan told the Inquirer.
“Why is she criticizing Senator Bong and his family when they’ve been trying to help her and her children from the start?” she said.
“During Ramgen’s wake, Revilla Jr. offered the services of a lawyer to Genelyn,” Ilagan recounted. “But Genelyn refused, saying that Senator Bong’s lawyer might sabotage RJ’s defense.”
Ilagan said the Revillas and Magsaysay wanted the same thing: Justice for Ramgen.