ILOILO City – “Kami ang bahala.”
President Rodrigo Duterte promised to help the family of the overseas Filipino worker whose skeletal remains were recovered inside a septic tank in South Korea in April.
According to Mayette Claveria, elder sister of slain Angelo Claveria, their meeting with Duterte at the multipurpose gym of Cabatuan, Iloilo on Wednesday may be short but it was enough to ease their anxiety.
The brief meeting took place after Duterte distributed Certificates of Land Ownership Award to 2,314 land reform beneficiaries.
The President met the Claveria family as he was leaving the gym past 6 p.m. Mayette said she was with her mother Angelita, two siblings and a niece.
Special Assistant to the President Christopher “Bong” Go facilitated the meeting. The Claverias were residents of Cabatuan.
“SAP Go introduced us to the President. We talked a little,” said Mayette.
She recalled telling Duterte, “Sir, aasahan namin ‘yung tulong mo sa kaso ni Angelo.”
The President nodded, said Mayette, while telling the family, “Oo kami ang bahala.”
The Claveria family expressed hope of securing justice for Angelo, a 34-year-old Marine Transportation graduate who went to South Korea in July 2014 to work as a metal cutter.
Angelo went missing in January 2016 and just this April 3, his skeletal remains were found inside a septic tank of a water purifier plant in the city of Hwaseong, Gyeonggi province.
South Korean authorities believed Angelo was murdered but no suspect has been arrested.
“The meeting with the President gave us some relief. There has been no update on the case since Angelo was buried,” said Mayette.
Angelo was buried at the municipal cemetery of Cabatuan on June 1.
Mayette said Go also told the Claveria family he himself heard the President discuss Angelo’s case with South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in during a visit to that country on June 3-5.
During his visit to Angelo’s wake on May 27, Go made it clear to the Claverias that the ball was in the hands of South Korean authorities as Angelo’s case happened there.
The South Korean police’s initial investigation showed Angelo was hit with a hard object on the head.
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, South Korean authorities were zeroing in on another overseas Filipino worker as suspect./PN
