‘A worthless friend took away my sister’

Model and television talent Julie Ann Rodelas was laid to rest on Saturday in Las Piñas City amid continuing outrage over her murder.

Dressed in white, family members and sympathizers showered her coffin with white rose petals as it was lowered into the grave at Golden Haven Memorial Park.

Rodelas, 20, was abducted in Pasay City and shot in Quezon City on Nov. 6, allegedly after drawing the ire of a fellow model, whose boyfriend then devised a plot involving some of his friends to teach Rodelas “a lesson.”

At the burial, Rodelas’ mother Luz turned steely when asked by reporters about her daughter’s friend Althea Altamirano—one of the alleged masterminds of the murder.

“Perhaps she (Altamirano) is happy now after getting what she wanted for my daughter. But something painful awaits her in jail,” Luz said in Filipino.

Altamirano, her boyfriend Fernando Quiambao Jr., and his cohort Jaymar Waradji are facing murder charges in Quezon City. In earlier media interviews, Altamirano admitted that she wanted to teach Rodelas “a lesson” for spreading rumors about her having two children, but claimed that she never thought Quiambao would go to the extent of having Rodelas killed.

Before the burial, at the funeral Mass held at Mary Queen of Apostles Parish in Parañaque City, Rodelas’ brother Alvin also did not hide his contempt toward Altamirano.

“My sister was so young yet she had big dreams for herself and for our family … and then she was suddenly taken away from us by a worthless friend,” Alvin said during the service.

The Rodelas family thanked supporters and the Quezon City police investigators, some of whom attended the Mass and even served as pall bearers.

“We believe the other two suspects will be captured soon,” Alvin said, referring to Efren Talib and a certain Aldos, who allegedly raped Rodelas in a safehouse in Barangay Culiat, Quezon City, before she was killed.