About 30 minutes later, funeral cars bearing the silver- and gold-coloured coffins of suspected drug lord Melvin Odicta and wife, Meriam, arrived for the requiem Mass at 2pm, Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.
People filled the aisle of the church and spilled out of its doors as they paid their last respects to the slain couple whom they called “Toto Boyet” and “Inday Meriam.”
“I came here to see them for the last time. They treated my brother and his family very well,” said a 46-year-old woman from Barangay Rizal Estanzuela who came with a niece.
Her brother is one of the drivers of the Melvin taxi fleet operated by the couple.
Among those who came to bid their farewell were family members, employees and supporters.
Some of them were ferried by the family-owned Melvin taxi and Meriam transport while others hired passenger jeepneys.
Placards were posted in some service vehicles reading: “Madam/Boss Boyet we will never forget the help you’ve extended to us.”
A gunman repeatedly shot the couple minutes after they disembarked from a passenger vessel at the Caticlan port in Malay town in Aklan on Aug 29.
Law enforcement agencies tagged Melvin as the head of two main illegal drug groups in Western Visayas. They believed his wife was also involved in the illegal drug trade.
The couple had denied the allegations and insisted they were operators of legitimate businesses including a taxi fleet and restaurant.
In his homily, Fr Renato Cuadras, main celebrant, quoted the statement of the Couples for Christ lay organisation against extrajudicial killings. “Everybody agrees that the illegal drug problem must be eradicated. But must it be done this way?” he said in the Mass that was co-celebrated by Fathers Norberto Tacadao, parish priest, and Lorenzo Camacho.
“Are we better off than the addicts or their pushers who cause rapes and other heinous crimes, when we kill with impunity, when we spill innocent blood? Does the end justify the means? When we don’t even know whether the ends will really be achieved?” Cuadras said, quoting the statement.
The family of Melvin and Meriam last Friday submitted to the Police Regional Office in Western Visayas an affidavit expressing lack of interest in pursuing the investigation and filing criminal complaints related to the couple’s killing.
SPO1 Nida Gregas, spokesperson of the Special Investigation Task Group Odicta, said the task group has not received a copy of the affidavit but confirmed it was filed before the Western Visayas police office.
She said the investigation being conducted by the task group will continue because the killing of the couple is a public crime.
The task group will automatically be dissolved after six months if no suspect has been charged.