Lives lost too soon: Children not spared in Duterte drug war
In the streets and inside university halls this week, families who lost loved ones in the war on drugs followed the International Criminal Court’s confirmation of charges proceedings against former President Rodrigo Duterte in The Hague — a legal step that will determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence for the case to go to trial.
For many of them, the case is not just about politics or policy. It is about the dead who cannot speak, and the children who never grew up.
Back in 2016, or nearly a decade ago, even before he won the presidency, Duterte had already declared an all-out war against criminality, threatening to “kill” those involved in illegal drugs.
READ: Evidence in Duterte ICC case: His ‘kill’ rhetoric, words
He said that if police killed thousands in the process, “I will protect you.” He also vowed that dead bodies would fill Manila Bay, and that he would be happy to kill millions of “addicts” in the Philippines.
READ: ‘Happy’ to kill: Rodrigo Duterte’s views on drug deaths
The campaign spared no one — not even children as young as 3. Some were killed while getting ready for school. Others were shot while asleep in their own beds, trying to rest for the next day.
One child had only just learned how to write his name when he was struck in the chest by a stray bullet after finishing homework, caught in a police operation meant to foil a pot session in the neighborhood.
A report by the World Organisation Against Torture said at least 122 children were killed in the war on drugs between July 2016 and December 2019. Police were responsible for more than half of the documented killings, while the rest involved vigilantes with alleged links to police.
The report concluded that some victims were deliberately shot or targeted as proxies.
READ: Dela Rosa’s comment on child’s death in police raid hits the fan
In 2019, Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa — then chief of the Philippine National Police — dismissed one child’s death with an expletive and called it collateral damage.
“Shit happens,” he said, adding that while no policeman would want a child killed. “Shit happens” during police operations.
This year, the ICC identified Dela Rosa as one of Duterte’s co-perpetrators.
READ: ICC names Dela Rosa, Bong Go as co-perpetrators in Duterte drug war
Earlier in his six-year presidency, Duterte described the deaths of children as “collateral damage.”
For the family of 3-year-old Kateleen Myca Ulpina, the words did not explain what happened on June 29, 2019.
Ulpina was killed in a police raid targeting her father, Renato Dolofrina, in Rizal. Police alleged the child was used as a “shield”, a claim her mother disputed, saying Ulpina was hit by a stray bullet fired by police who entered their home and smashed a window while they slept. She also said no document was provided to support the legality of the operation.
READ: Duterte at the ICC: Confirmation of charges hearing
Save the Children said the campaign against illegal drugs, “intended to make our communities safe”, had instead made communities more dangerous for children. The international nongovernment organization said children were killed and placed in the line of fire during police operations, and that a child’s death in relation to the war on drugs should be condemned.
The names that followed became a roll call of interrupted childhoods — toddlers and teens whose last moments were spent not in classrooms or playgrounds, but in the crossfire of an anti-drug campaign.
Skyler Abatayo, 4
Abatayo was killed by a stray bullet that pierced his heart on July 10, 2018. He was inside his room in Sitio Bato in Brgy. Ermita, Cebu City, when police conducted an operation in the neighborhood.
Althea Barbon, 4
Barbon, a kindergarten pupil in Guihulngan City, Negros Oriental, was killed by a single bullet fired by one of the policemen who were chasing her father, a suspected drug dealer, on Aug. 31, 2016.
Danica May Garcia, 5
The first documented case of a child killed in the drug war, Garcia was hit in the head when a gunman fired at her grandfather on Aug. 23, 2016, in Dagupan City, Pangasinan. Her grandfather had earlier surrendered to police after he was told he was on a watch list.
Francis Mañosca, 5
Mañosca was killed along with his father, an Oplan Tokhang surrenderer, in Brgy. Sto. Niño, Pasay City, on Dec. 11, 2016. A gunman fired through a wall, but the shot hit the 5-year-old child on the forehead. A second shot killed his father.
San Niño Batucan, 7
Batucan was at home in Brgy. Cansaga in Consolacion, Cebu, watching TV on Dec. 3, 2016, when he was hit by a bullet fired by bonnet-wearing men outside who had been chasing a teenager accused of selling drugs.
Kristine Joy Sailog, 12
Sailog was inside a church for an anticipated dawn Mass leading to Christmas when she was killed by a stray bullet fired by a gunman targeting barangay watchman Allan Fernandez on Dec. 21, 2016.
Jayross Brondial, 13
Brondial was shot dead by a man on a motorcycle in Pasay City a day before he was to take part in a school program celebrating Teachers’ Day. He was shot three times in the head and three times in the body in Brgy. 104.
Reynaldo de Guzman and Carl Angelo Arnaiz, 14 and 19
De Guzman and Arnaiz went missing on Aug. 17, 2017, after they were last seen together in Cainta, Rizal. Arnaiz’s body was found by his parents in a morgue in Caloocan City 11 days later, while De Guzman’s body was discovered in a creek in Gapan City, Nueva Ecija, on Sept. 5.
Navotas Regional Trial Court Branch 287 convicted in 2023 a Caloocan police officer involved in the killing of the two teenagers, saying they were “intentionally killed.” The Court of Appeals affirmed the decision last year.
Sean Christian Martinez, 14
Martinez, a Grade 8 student, died in an alleged police encounter in Dasmariñas City, Cavite, on March 25, 2018. Police alleged Martinez had a .45-caliber pistol. He was shot eight times and died on the spot.
Kian Lloyd de los Santos, 17
De los Santos was killed on Aug. 16, 2017, in Brgy. Baesa, Caloocan City. He cried and begged to be allowed to go home, saying he had an exam the next day, but policemen forced him to hold a towel covering what appeared to be a gun and made him stand with his shirt raised to cover his head.
The three police officers dragged de los Santos toward a dark alley near a river, where he was shot several times. A year later, the policemen were convicted by the Caloocan City Regional Trial Court. The decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court last year.
As families watched this week’s proceedings from thousands of miles away, the legal language in The Hague stood in sharp contrast to the small details that survivors still carry: a child in a bedroom, a kindergarten pupil, a student with an exam the next day.
For them, the search for accountability is inseparable from grief — and from the lives they say were taken too soon.
