Umali on Cauzo murder links: ‘I’m innocent’

CABANATUAN CITY, Nueva Ecija, November 14, 2012-Nueva Ecija Gov. Aurelio Umali has maintained his innocence amid the supposed attempts by the camp of his estranged former political ally, Mayor Julius Caezar Vergara to link the former in the November 7 murder of the hard-hitting radio anchor.

         

Speaking over TV 48, Umali swore to high heavens that he had nothing to do with Cauzo’s killing and said his history as a politician is not etched in violence.

“History will bear me out that I have no history of violence, past or present. There is no tinge of blood in my hands. And may the wrath of God fall on the perpetrators of the dastardly killing of Cauzo,” he told newsmen.

Umali issued the statement amid the perceived attempts of the Vergara camp to link him to the killing of Cauzo, a radio anchor of DWJJ, the teleradyo outfit owned by the family of Vergara.

Umali and Vergara are locked up in a bitter, protracted word war over the Highly Urbanized City bid of the city government under Vergara. Umali is strongly opposing the conversion, contained in Presidential Proclamation 418 issued last July 4 by President Aquino.

A plebiscite to ratify or reject the conversion has been set by the Commission on Elections on December 1.

The police said it is looking into politics as one of the angles in the killing of Cauzo who – before his death – has been engaged in an animated, mostly heated exchange with Umali’s allies from TV 48 over the HUC issue.

Umali has offered a P1-million reward to anyone who could provide information on the killers of Cauzo, matching the amount put up by Vergara. He asked mediamen to join Task Force Cauzo and the Philippine National Police in the conduct of a full-blown investigation into the killing of the radio anchor.

The governor led a peace rally at the Capitol Monday simultaneous with a separate rally made by the camp of Vergara. 

Umali admitted that he has past run-ins with the media in the province, including a former radio commentator of DWNE when the Josons were still in power and two other correspondents of Manila-based dailies but nothing untoward happened to them.

\“This former radio commentator had been maligning and lambasting me. You should have heard him curse me in the airwaves. But did anything untoward happened to him? None,” he said.

“I will be the last person to resort to violence. But I never back down from a fight,” he said. He accused Vergara of allegedly fomenting anarchy and lawlessness by trying to provoke him so that if he did, they would capitalize on it.

He cited an incident last Thursday when some persons who were employed at city hall held an indignation rally demanding justice for Cauzo and barged inside the Capitol compound and destroyed the glass entrance door while shouting expletives at personnel. (Manny Galvez)