Kuya Wilson

RIP March 23, 2018

"Si Wilson napusilan (Wilson was shot)," said my mother who just came out from the bathroom very uneasy and was in a haste.  This was what I woke up to in the morning of March 24, 2018.  At first thought, I pictured my cousin in a hospital bed safely recuperating and that he just got entangled with some drug-related altercation the night before.  And so I went on to attend my first Fairchild cooperative assembly that Saturday.  It was during the event that I finally understood the situation.  I saw his blooded corpse plastered all over Facebook.  Imagine how it felt like as a relative seeing the pictures?  

As I Know Him...

Everytime my family visited the ancestral home in Mandaue City, we used to play a lot.  Kuya Wilson grew up in that house.  I remember him pretty much the joker, with Kuya Owie and him ganging up on us girl cousins with their antics.  He loved dogs too.  By the time he passed away, he orphaned four or five askals.  Being the first apo, he was Nanay Oping's (our spinster grand aunt) favorite --actually, he was the grand folks' favorite.  Growing up (high school to college years) we drifted apart.  Being an only child who had absentee parents in the essential years of a person's growth, he turned to friends and vices and did not finish school.  I seldom saw him then.  With that, I learned that he jumped from one job to another until he went on to work in MEPZ where he met the mother of his children (two young ladies now).  Fast forward, he once worked in TEAM (Traffic Enforcement Agency of Mandaue).  You may have seen him in the streets of Alang-alang (near Tita Guapa / Sanchez Centre) guiding motorists or monitoring the traffic  There was a time I tapped on him for help when I figured myself in a hit and run situation.  It was through his assistance that I was able to identify the public multicab that scratched the car I was driving.  It was him who religiously checked if the vehicle has plied the route again.  Because of him, we were able to catch the driver and claim damages.

Enter Duterte's administration.  With all the drug brouhahas and frenzy, the agency conducted a surprise drug test, he tested positive and so he lost his job in TEAM.  He was a user but he was never the dependent type nor was he someone who gets into fights or brawls as what common drug users get into.

And then Nanay Oping died.  It was around that time that he was working on a job offer he got from a security agency.  He also asked his mother who was then based in Manila, to stay in Mandaue for good ---with him and with our grandmother Mama Nats.  He was very excited to work because he will then be assigned to Infinity Bar and will be working for the infamous Lims.

The Accounts to His Death...

The morning before he died, he bickered with his mother about the dirty floors so he had it mopped.  His mother was crying recounting on what happened that early day.  Nobody knew what was bound to happen.  It was supposed to be a normal day...

Some things to clear though:

Hearsay:

He was guiding Wellington's car backing out from the parking lot.

Truth:

Wellington's car was not in the establishment in the first place.  It was a client's car he was trying to assist.  Wellington's car was just about to arrive when the shots were fired.

Hearsay:

He fired shots that's why shots were fired at him.

Truth:

He could never have fired a shot because he was assigned a defective shotgun.  

Imagine a 2-inch bullet piercing through your body?  He had one at the right side of his temple which I know the morgue had a hard time stitching.  He had one at the upper right side of his chest which was padded with a lot of bandage, it may have left a hole or something.  He also had a few below his rib (I can no longer remember which side).  To add to that, a police officer said that one of his leg was broken possibly because the white pick up truck ran over it when it escaped.

The Irony...

My cousin's death could not be important to many but I could not help and wonder: he could have made a breakthrough in his life.  He could have proven himself a worthy father to his daughters.  He could have proven himself to be a good son or a noble person at all.  And then here is Wellington Lim who has been living comfortably and in luxury all his life.  Already old, he could have done everything he wanted to do in his life.  Why is it Kuya Wilson's turn to die when he was just trying to pick-up his life?  If the ambush was really related to drugs, then Wellington's death could mean one less evil in Cebu City.

Yes, Kuya Wilson did die because of drugs, but sadly it was something not of his doing.  Sadly, he was just a poor casualty in this war which I think only the rich will come out winning.

oo0 End 0oo