‘No heart, no soul, no conscience’

Widowed, pregnant and with two young children to look after, Ruth Jane Sombrio seeks a bleak future ahead. —Aie Balagtas See

The mere sight of her former house where her live-in partner was shot and killed by policemen almost a month ago still makes Ruth Jane Sombrio cry.

After all, the one-room shanty on San Miguel Road in Binondo, Manila, was the reason Rogie Sebastian, a 30-year-old pedicab driver accused of being a drug pusher, ended up being one of the casualties in the government’s war on drugs.

The 40-year-old Sombrio who is seven months pregnant described her partner as a good man. He used to take drugs
but he stopped when President Duterte came into office,
she told the Inquirer in a recent interview.

“I’ve had three husbands. Rogie was the third and the kindest. The other two would beat me up but he was kind to me,” she said.

As Sombrio recounted that fateful night, she could not help but weep. Every time she laid eyes on her old house—just meters away from where she now lives with her mother—a pained expression would cross her face.

“I can never forget how they killed him. He and I pleaded for the policemen to spare his life but they didn’t,” she said.

The couple and their children aged 1 and 2 years old were fast asleep when uniformed and plainclothes policemen barged into their house at 3:30 a.m. on Sept. 19.

They were looking for Fernan, the shanty owner, Sombrio recalled. A friend of Sebastian’s, Fernan was also rumored to be a runner of shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride).

In their official report submitted to the Manila Police District (MPD), Binondo policemen said Sebastian died in a buy-bust operation led by Chief Inspectors Leandro Gutierrez and Fernando Reyes, and Senior Insp. Edwin Samonte.

Gutierrez is the head of the Meisic police station’s anti-illegal drug unit and Samonte, the intelligence unit chief. Reyes, on the other hand, is commander of the San Nicolas police community precinct. Both stations are in charge of keeping peace and order in the Binondo area, including San Miguel Road, a squatters’ community located beside the Pasig River.

Buy-bust operation

According to the report, PO2 Juan Candelario acted as a poseur buyer and bought P100 worth of shabu from Sebastian who sensed he was a policeman. A shoot-out ensued and Sebastian, who was reportedly armed with a .38-cal. firearm, died on the spot.

Sombrio, however, recalled the events quite differently. For one thing, her partner did not own a gun.

She said that a few hours earlier, policemen on motorcycles were roaming around the area. Worried, she found it hard to fall asleep that night.

Sebastian, on the other hand, barely noticed them. He had a fever and just wanted to rest. Sebastian saw no reason to worry, he told her, because he was not Fernan.

“He was wrong,” Sombrio said. “So what was he? Palit-ulo (A substitute)?” she asked angrily.

When the police entered their house, they grabbed Sebastian and kept on asking him about Fernan’s whereabouts. With his hands up in the air, Sebastian begged for his life.

His kids were still young, he told the lawmen.

Out of fear, Sombrio said she and her partner embraced each other. The children started to cry as their parents became hysterical under the barrels of the policemen’s guns.

“Don’t leave me,” Sebastian told Sombrio.

“Then the policemen shot him in the foot and started dragging me and my kids out of the house. They said it was better for them not to see what was going to happen. I told them, ‘But you already shot him in front of them.’”

Plea ignored

Sebastian begged the cops again: “Let me embrace my
children.”

But Sombrio and her children were taken outside their house. Moments later, gunshots rang out. Sebastian would later be found, his body riddled with gunshot wounds on the chest, head and foot.

Sombrio said she doesn’t know who killed her partner.

All she knows is that he was shot in the foot by a mannish-looking woman in plainclothes who first donned a bonnet and a pair of gloves before drawing her firearm. This “tomboy,” Sombrio told the Inquirer, was a policewoman.

When she learned that Sebastian was dead, she went into hysterics, Sombrio recalled.

She wanted to see his body to say goodbye but the authorities would not let her past the yellow tape that cordoned off her house. “I went from one policeman to another telling them that since they were planning to kill my husband, they should have brought a coffin for him, too,” she said.

“They just laughed at me. I was crying and they were laughing at me,” she added.

According to her, Sebastian’s death meant a lot of things: She lost a good man while her kids, including their unborn child, lost their father.

Deep in debt

With the funeral home charging her P100,000 for services, Sombrio went to her friends to beg for money to claim his body and give him a proper wake. It took two weeks to come up with the money before Sebastian was finally buried at the Manila North Cemetery.

With the family’s sole breadwinner gone, Sombrio is worried about the future.

“I can’t work because I’m pregnant and no one wants to hire me. Where am I going get the money we need to survive?” she said.

As for filing a case against the police, Sombrio said this was the furthest thing from her mind.

“I want to forget everything. If I had the money, I would
go back home to the province,” she added.

She just wants to get away from the pain inflicted on her by the policemen. “They don’t have a heart or a soul, not even a conscience,” Sombrio said.

In the mornings, each time she sees policemen—whether in uniform or civilian clothes—she goes weak in the knees and cries.

The nights are harder, however, particularly for her 2-year-old son who saw his father being shot.

Sombrio said: “He cries as he looks for his father. He says, “Papa, papa. Wala na (He’s gone). Papa, papa. Bang bang.”