LOS BAÑOS, Philippines—A trainee of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), who died on board a government ship a month before his graduation, was diagnosed with a lung ailment, a Coast Guard official said.
But Arlene Mojica believes that her son, Dharryll, 23, was “physically fit” and most likely acquired the ailment during training, “otherwise, he would not have been drafted.”
She said Dharryll was treated for “an early stage of pneumonia” and was allowed to go back to the training.
A Manila-based PCG official, who declined to be identified for lack of authority to speak about the case, said that “as far as we know, he was diagnosed with TB (tuberculosis) and was under medication.”
The National Bureau of Investigation is looking into the trainee’s death after his family sought help from Justice Secretary Leila de Lima on Oct. 14.
Dharryll died on Sept. 27 at Philippine General Hospital (PGH), two days after he met an “accident” on board the BRP San Juan which was docked in Tondo, Manila. According to the PCG, he was electrocuted after he leaned on an electrical outlet near the shower room on Sept. 25.
His family, however, believed something was amiss after PGH doctors identified “drowning and electrical injury” as the causes of his death.
“A large part of his back was burned. He had bruises on the legs and a wound in the head,” Arlene said in a phone interview on Monday. She also said doctors extracted 2 liters of water from his lungs.
“We were against it (Dharryll entering the PCG), but he said he wanted to be like me, a government employee, because of the benefits despite the low salary,” Arlene said.
Dharryll was the eldest in a brood of four. His father, Edgar, is a village councilor in Indang town, Cavite province, while Arlene works as a grade school teacher.
After finishing a two-year course on computer technology, Dharryll helped manage the family’s canteen inside a techno-park in Dasmariñas City, also in Cavite. “His plan was to support the education of his youngest brother, who’ll be turning 7 this December,” Arlene said.
Arlene said Dharryll signed up in the initial three-month training as a “draftee” in January. In April, medical check-ups showed that he had pneumonia but he was treated and allowed to continue the non-officer’s course for another six months in Taguig City.
Dharryll would have graduated on Oct. 28 as a member of Class 32 with the rank of an apprentice seaman, the equivalent of a private in the Army.
“He never had any vice. He was a quiet boy, did not speak much,” Arlene said.
His parents saw him “very happy” on his recognition day on Sept. 23. “He said he was happy because he survived the ‘hell night’ when he was given electric shocks and underwent waterboarding,” Arlene said.
The next morning, Dharryll visited his relatives in Cavite. “Our relatives even drove him back in the afternoon to Manila so he wouldn’t be late back to the ship at 4 p.m.,” Arlene said.
She said Dharryll arrived at the PCG station six minutes late and texted her that he might receive punishment the next morning.
“He told us about this one time he was caught keeping ‘hopia,’” Arlene said. Trainees are not allowed to keep food for themselves, she quoted him as saying.
Dharryll told his parents that he was given electric shocks while holding on to the metal frame of a double-deck bed.
The PCG official found the family’s suspicions of foul play “absurd.” He and two other PCG officials from different batches, denied in separate interviews that there was hazing during the training.
“The PCG [training] is in fact the most lenient (compared with the police’s or the Army’s) that the trainees were being treated like babies already,” the official said.
Another official, who also declined to be named for fear of reprisal from the PCG, said hazing “used to be a part of the tradition.”
“But I know it stopped already sometime 2011 because I was once with the trainees and you couldn’t even scold them,” he said.
The officials said the most difficult part of the training was swimming 6 kilometers in open sea and that punishments were limited to only push-ups and jumping jacks.