Hontiveros wants Aug. 16 of every year to be ‘National Day of Remembrance’

Kian Loyd delos Santos

To commemorate the death of a 17-year-old boy, who was killed in the government’s war on drugs, Senator Risa Hontiveros wants every 16th of August to be declared as a “National Day of Remembrance.”

Exactly one year ago this day, Kian Loyd Delos Santos was killed in anti-illegal drugs operation by Caloocan police.

Through Senate Resolution No. 848, which she filed Wednesday, Hontiveros sought to declare every 16th of August as a “National Day of Remembrance” for Delos Santos and other victims of the government’s drug war.

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Delos Santos’ death, the senator said, sparked national and international outrage, and underscored the alleged human rights atrocities committed “in the name of the administration’s bloody war on drugs, even to innocent youth and children.”

At least 74 minors, according to the Children Legal Rights and Development Center, have been killed in police operations and “vigilante-style-attacks from July 2016 to December 2017,” Hontiveros noted in the resolution.

The Philippine National Police’s own statistics, she said, showed that its anti-illegal drugs operation have resulted in more than 4,000 deaths since President Rodrigo Duterte’s assumption into power.

“By choosing to remember those who have been felled by the war on drugs, we state our clear rejection of this culture of impunity and brazen disregard for due process and human rights,” she said in the resolution.

“The act of remembering is an act of defiance against the killings. To forget is to give consent,” the senator added in a separate statement.

As part of the many efforts to commemorate Delos Santos’ first death anniversary and other drug war victims, Hontiveros’ office said a memorial marker will be unveiled on Friday afternoon at the San Roque Cathedral compound in Caloocan.

Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, Hontiveros as well as friends and relatives of Delos Santos would lead the unveiling of the marker.   /kga