Trauma reshapes lives of families in Dagupan

Teresita Tiamzon: My daughter was not a pusher. —RAY ZAMBRANO

DAGUPAN CITY—Teresita Tiamzon has been losing sleep since July 20 when she learned from a television news report that a dead woman had been found on a village road in Manaoag town.

The woman turned out to be her 22-year-old daughter, Rowena. Her face and body were wrapped in packaging tape. Strung around her neck was a piece of cardboard on which was written: “Don’t emulate, she is a pusher.”

“It has been so hard for me to move on. She slept beside me at night and to this day, I seem to lose my mind whenever I remember her,” Tiamzon said.

Trauma has reshaped the lives of Tiamzon and other Dagupan families who have lost loved ones to President Duterte’s war on drugs, launched supposedly to protect young people.

These families grieve because the government has not explained why children have become collateral damage in the campaign against narcotics.

“It is not true that Rowena was a pusher. She was not into drugs,” Tiamzon said, adding that her daughter was an active member of a church choir.

The youngest in a brood of six, Rowena was an obedient  sweet child, she said.

This month, Rowena would have finished her mass communication studies at Colegio de Dagupan, a block away from her house.

Rowena had promised to build her mother a house, vowing never to marry until she had fulfilled that pledge.

On the same day, her body was found, a gunman killed 20-year-old Roman Manaois.

On July 19, Manaois was invited by a tricycle driver to ride with him to the city to buy food. As they rode to Binmaley town, a man hailed the tricycle and asked to be taken to nearby Barangay Lucao here.

As the passenger was getting off at Lucao, he was shot by a man waiting beside a motorcycle.

Terrified, Manaois and the tricycle driver fled. But the gunman rode after them and shot Manaois in the back.

Manaois fell on the road, and was shot in the head.

In Barangay Carael here, Manaois’ parents Dennis and Cecil have not stopped grieving. Cecil said her son was the family’s breadwinner and he was helping to pull them out of poverty.

At the time of his death, Manaois was about to finish a seaman’s course and preparing for his first ship job.

“[Roman] told me he would take me to a doctor in Manila to have my gout and arthritis checked when he gets his overseas assignment,” Dennis said.

“He also said he would build us a house and send his siblings to school,” he added.

Dennis used to be a construction worker and driver. His ailments have confined him to a wheelchair.

The family’s biggest anguish came when the police linked Manaois to illegal drugs in order to explain his death.

“The people in our barangay know him as a good child. He  went out only when his friends asked him to play basketball,”  Cecil said.

Danica Mae Garcia, 5

In Barangay Mayombo here, the roar of a motorcycle makes Gemma Garcia jump in fright at her makeshift eatery where she lost her 5-year-old granddaughter Danica Mae in an attack on her husband, Maximo, on Aug. 23.

“If there are two people on that motorcycle, I tell my children and grandchildren to run and hide,” Garcia said.

Gemma, Maximo and their two grandchildren were having lunch on Aug. 23 when a man on a motorcycle stopped at the eatery, casually walked toward them and opened fire.

Maximo was hit in the back but managed to run to a swamp at the back of their house. But a bullet struck Danica Mae who was taking a bath.

Stop the killings

Gemma said Maximo had nothing to do with illegal drugs. “My husband was a pedicab driver until he suffered a stroke a year ago. I earn a little by selling food,” she said. Maximo had been informed by a village official that his name appeared on a drug watch list and he was told to surrender. Maximo reported to the local police three days before the attack.

He had since gone into hiding, fearful that the gunman would return to kill him.

The grieving families say Mr. Duterte must put a stop to the killing of drug suspects.

Dennis Manaois argued that addicts, dealers and pushers could change given a chance. “They should not be killed because they also have families. [The authorities] should also check if [the suspects] are really involved in illegal drugs,” he said.

If she could meet the President, Teresita Tiamzon said she would ask him to stop the carnage because even innocent people were being killed.

“He has no idea how it feels to lose a child,” she said.

Gemma Garcia refused to comment. “I might say something they will not like. We just want justice for Danica,” she said.

Manaois said the police had no suspect in his son’s killing.

Tiamzon said National Bureau of Investigation agents had come to see her and asked questions she could not answer. “What can we do? We do not know who killed my daughter,” she said.

Garcia said no law enforcement agency had informed her about the results of the investigation of the shooting of her husband and granddaughter.

“It’s up to them. If they want to help us, good. If not, it doesn’t matter. We will leave everything to God,” she said.