Imelda visits wake of Lozano's son

MANILA, Philippines - Former first lady and now Ilocos Norte Rep. Imelda Marcos yesterday visited the wake of Emerson Lozano at the St. Peter Memorial Chapel in Quezon City.

The lawmaker arrived past noon and immediately hugged the victim’s grieving father Oliver and mother Norma.

Lozano is a known Marcos loyalist and had once been the Marcoses’ legal counsel.

“My heart is bleeding as a mother because things like this are happening in our land,” Marcos said.

According to the Ilocos lawmaker, widow of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, heinous crimes like the one that happened to Emerson are a result of extreme poverty.

“People are no longer thinking about what is right and what is wrong,” Marcos said. “They only think about how they would survive at any cost.”

During the wake, Lozano said he was satisfied with the way the authorities are handling the case of his son.

He said his family and the Philippine National Police (PNP) have a “very close and very cordial” coordination regarding the investigation.

“Many witnesses have already volunteered (to come forward),” he said, without divulging details.

A mother’s grief

Mrs. Lozano, on the other hand, said she was in denial even if she initially felt that the charred body found in a grassy lot in Pampanga was her son’s.

“I noticed that the upper portion of the body was broad just like my son, but I didn’t want to accept it and I prayed, ‘Lord, please not my son’,” Norma said.

Mrs. Lozano also recalled seeing her husband touch the head of the then unidentified body, talking to her and then going back to see the body without saying anything,

“I suspected already it was him but I was in denial,” she said.

When she could no longer bear the situation inside the morgue, Norma told her husband that they should leave, saying she could no longer take the smell of formalin.

On Sunday, about 30 minutes before the police authorities revealed the result of the medico-legal examination on the cadaver, she, her husband and their other son went to a church inside Camp Crame.

“I prayed and told the Lord that if he (Emerson) was still alive, ‘thank you.’ But if not, I’m ready to give him back to you. At that point I already surrendered,” she said.

Emerson went missing on Wednesday after a supposed meeting with a client at a gas station in Barangay Old Balara. His driver was found dead and dumped in La Paz, Tarlac on Thursday. Emerson’s charred body was dumped in Porac, Pampanga.

Mrs. Lozano said her son will be laid to rest tomorrow (Thursday) at 2 p.m. at Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina City.

She said Emerson will have a traditional burial and his remains will not be cremated since there is an ongoing investigation on his murder.

Norma said Emerson did not have any problem in the occasional buy-and-sell of vehicles. His main work was as production manager of a construction firm.

“We didn’t expect that this (buy-and-sell business) would be the one that would lead to his death,” she said.

The Lozano family is now left with the task of supporting the wife and two children that Emerson left behind.

Mrs. Lozano said her grandchildren are acting maturely for their age and seem to understand what was going on.

She admitted that their whole family is now taking extra precautions after what happened to Emerson.  – Video taken by Dennis Carcamo