‘They took him as a replacement’

Jose Sajorda was asleep in the afternoon of March 16 when armed men wearing bonnets to hide their faces barged inside the family’s shanty in Area 1, Navotas City.

They demanded to know where his 16-year-old son, Jeremy, was. The boy, Sajorda’s hysterical wife would later tell relatives, was wanted for robbery, the men claimed.

When they couldn’t find the boy inside the house, they took Sajorda who turned up at a funeral home the following day, killed by a single bullet to the head.

A relative who had gone to different police stations to look for him saw his name under the list of persons found dead. He alerted the family who went to the police which directed them to Eusebio Funeral Homes.

“I wish they had killed my grandson instead,” Sajorda’s mother-in-law Rowena told the Inquirer in a recent interview.

“If my grandson is really guilty, then kill him. We would not object. But they took my son-in-law as a replacement. He was a good father and a good person. And they killed him! Who will raise his other children now?” Rowena said. Since his father’s death, Jeremy has not been seen by his family.

Sajorda was just one of three people forcibly taken by the bonnet-wearing men from the neighborhood that day. The two other men, one of them 16-year-old Arjay Suldao, also wound up dead.
Robbery suspect
Suldao was tinkering with his brand-new bike in his house, when the men also barged inside, demanding to know where the “robber” was.

His mother, Nieves, said: “They took him because they couldn’t find my older son, Jaypee (not his real name).” Jaypee has also not been seen since by his family.

To their relatives, Sajorda and Suldao were both victims of the “palit-ulo” scheme (head swapping).

Inquirer first reported last year a possible palit-ulo case involving Rogie Sebastian who allegedly died in a police operation in Binondo, Manila. (Link: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/825952/no-heart-no-soul-no-conscience)

This was months before Vice President Leni Robredo raised the issue which the Philippine National Police immediately denied.

According to Binondo policemen, Sebastian was killed in a drug bust in September. But his live-in partner, Ruth Jane Sombrio, insisted that the lawmen who killed him were looking for their neighbor and landlord Fernan whom she alleged was a known drug pusher.

But unfortunately for her husband, Fernan was nowhere to be found when the policemen barged into their house.

Like Sombrio, Rowena and Nieves are filled with pain and anguish. But they do not necessarily think that killings are wrong as long as the gunmen get the right person.

Both women said they had heard that Jeremy and Jaypee were wanted for a robbery.

Rowena is not even sure if Jeremy is guilty but if he were, she wishes that his father’s killers had gotten him instead.

By killing Sajorda, they may have killed his other children too, she said.

“I have nothing. Who will feed them now? Who will send them to school? Can’t you see we are poor? My daughter, after witnessing Jose’s abduction, is no longer thinking straight,” she added.

Suldao’s death came as a big blow to his family. They searched for him in police stations and in funeral homes for five days before they heard that a boy who looked like him was found dead in Bangkulasi, Navotas, on March 21.

From their house in Area 1 Barangay NBBS, Nieves, her sister Beng and daughter Angeline ran for a kilometer to the area where the body was.

They found him lying face down with his hands tied behind his back. His knees were bent, indicating that he may have been kneeling before he was shot in the head.

Witnesses said they heard someone crying and pleading for his life before a gunshot rang out.

On the other hand, Sajorda’s relatives buried him hastily at the Sangandaan cemetery on March 22.

They could not even mourn properly as they received threats that all of them would be killed unless Jeremy returns.

Aside from his family, only 10 people went to Sajorda’s burial. Others were too scared to attend.

Nieves, meanwhile, is still waiting for her older son, Jaypee, to come home—provided he is still alive.