In the early hours of September 10, suspected vigilantes in Metro Manila shot to death 45-year-old Maria Aurora Moynihan inside a vehicle and then tossed her body along a street in Quezon City.
Based on what was written on the cardboard that they left beside her remains, Moynihan had been accused of selling drugs.
The death of Moynihan is a tragic addition to her already-controversial family history.
It was not the end that anyone would picture for a woman who traced her origins to British aristocrats.
Then again, a direct link to British aristocracy isn’t necessarily a guarantee that one would be low-key.
Her father was proof of this.
Antony Patrick Andrew Cairne Berkeley Moynihan — a hereditary British peer — was known as the 3rd Lord Moynihan. In 1965, he had succeeded his father as the Liberal whip in the UK’s the House of Lords. However, his risky pursuits soon caught up with him.
By the end of the 1960s, Lord Moynihan was facing more than 50 charges including fraud. Thus, he fled to Spain and then the Philippines.
When Lord Moynihan died at age 55 in 1991, The Telegraph published what is possibly one of its most colorful obituaries ever.
The obituary opening read: “His chief occupations were bongo-drummer, confidence trickster, brothel-keeper, drug-smuggler, and police informer, but ‘Tony’ Moynihan also claimed other areas of expertise — as ‘professional negotiator,’ ‘international diplomatic courier,’ ‘currency manipulator,’ and ‘authority on rock and roll.'”
Lord Moynihan had married several times in his life.
In 1968, he married a Filipina dancer whose family also happened to own a chain of massage parlours in Manila.
The woman, Luthgarda Maria Beltran del Rosa Fernandez, bore three daughters: Antonita (who later used the screen name Maritoni Fernandez when she joined Philippine showbiz), Aurora, and Kathleen.
Aurora had already been arrested in a drug bust in 2013, where they seized shabu, marijuana and ecstasy tablets from her and her companions. She posted bail and was released.
The investigation on her death is ongoing.
Police allege that she had been peddling drugs to showbiz personalities in the Philippines.
Meanwhile, Aurora’s actress-sister issued a statement, which read: “We as family may take this time to grieve, mourn but most of all celebrate the life of this exceptional human being I will forever have the privilege of calling my sister. We ask the public at this time to respect our need for privacy so that we may continue to heal in our own way.”
For what it’s worth, we say rest in peace now, Aurora.
