Parte2:
They didn’t expect me to agree so easily, so they all stopped me from starting to walk up the hill, with me was Captain Rody, Aling Nena, and almost half of the barangay with their cellphones recording. Rafael, still arrogant, thought it was all just bluffing and wanted to scare me, while Alina was complaining about the mud stuck on her shoes and the heat that was ruining her makeup. When we arrived under the tamarind tree, the new grave with a cross made of bamboo and Ate’s name written on it, written by Nanay, was clearly visible, and Rafael’s hand started shaking, not because of fear of death, but because it was really a grave.
I stopped the men who had hired them. I told them they couldn’t dig without the family’s and barangay’s permission, and without a lawyer, and luckily, my cousin Atty. Liza arrived, who secretly called me, brought the death certificate signed by the municipality, the medical abstract from the district hospital stating severe anemia, sepsis, and organ failure, and the copy of the blotter we made when Ate was being beaten and scared. Rafael started to tremble after reading Atty. Liza’s strong date and date, comparing it to the fake consent she brought, May 12 to May 14, and the people started to whisper that she was fake and how she would sign the death certificate.
Alina tried to cry to have mercy on the people, saying she would die if she couldn’t help, and that I was heartless for trying to save her life, but before she could finish, I took out from Ate’s old bag the test results, the receipts for the forced blood extraction, the photos of her butt, and a small voice recorder with a broken edge. I pressed play and everyone heard, even if weak, Rafael’s voice shouting: “If you don’t sign, you won’t be able to go home to your family ever,” and Ate’s voice crying, saying she didn’t want to anymore.
The wind changed direction, and I was no longer the villain in the eyes of the barangay, but the police who were my allies earlier began to ask why there was a private hospital ambulance ready to perform the autopsy without a court order, and why Dizon Biomedica itself filed a report that Clarissa was missing even though she had a death certificate. Rafael turned red with anger and kept insisting that I had invented everything and that I could fake my voice, but everyone saw how he pushed Alina away when he heard that the Captain from the DOH and the media were calling.
Before they finally came down from the hill, Rafael looked at me and whispered a threat, that not everything was over and that he could buy the whole barangay if he wanted to, and that I would regret humiliating them in front of many people, and I answered him not with a scream but with composure while looking at Ate’s grave, that my sister’s body was never a warehouse for a piece of paper, that the evidence was not just under the ground but in the blood, in the bones, and in the voice he left behind. When the black Lexus with muddy tires came to a stop, I was left trembling not from fear but from the weight of what I had discovered, that they could indeed forge the signature of the dead, and I knew they would come back even worse.
Thank you for reading this far 🙏 The next part is in the Facebook page’s comment section. Click “View all comments” to read Part 3 👇📖