Druggies still pleading, dying in Pasig, Pateros

From just one extrajudicial killing recorded on Monday night following the government’s suspension of “Oplan Tokhang,” gunmen targeting drug suspects again prowled the streets and found three victims in Pasig City and Pateros.

“We thought there would be no more killings since President Duterte stopped the antidrug operations to clean up the Philippine National Police first,” said William Sorima. “Everyone here says it is the police who are behind the killings. Why are they still killing?”

William’s younger brother, 35-year-old Edicer, was killed by bonnet-wearing men on Wednesday in Pateros.

A report to Supt. Joel Villanueva, the municipal police chief, said the younger Sorima, allegedly a drug pusher, was shot dead outside his house in Masikap Community Complex, Barangay Sta. Ana, at 4:30 a.m.

William told the Inquirer that two men barged into their house looking for Edicer while four others served as lookouts. “They told me they would just ask my brother some questions, so we were horrified to hear four gunshots.”

According to a neighbor who witnessed the killing, the victim was shot four times—twice in the face and once in the chest and nape—as he was kneeling and pleading for his life.

“How could he be a drug pusher when he did not even have money for food?” William Sorima asked. The family, however, admitted that Edicer was an occasional drug user.

Sorima said his brother had suffered from a psychiatric disorder for nine years and that Edicer just came from a checkup at the National Center for Mental Health in Mandaluyong City.

In Barangay Manggahan, Pasig City, Joven Boñaga, 27, was on his way to buy beer at a sari-sari store on Katimugan Street, Karangalan Village, when he was shot by four men on two motorcycles around 11 p.m. on Tuesday.

Maryln Sabares, the victim’s stepsister, told investigators  that Boñaga had surrendered as a drug user under Tokhang.

A report to Eastern Police District director Chief Supt. Romulo Sapitula, however, said investigators were verifying if the victim was behind several theft incidents in the area.

Around the same time Boñaga was killed, another Manggahan resident was fatally shot by three men on two motorcycles.

Case investigator SPO1 Al Alvarez said 25-year-old Aldrin De Guzman was on a bicycle going to Tawiran Avenue when the assailants shot him at close range.

Like Boñaga, De Guzman, a resident of Guyabano Extension, Napico, was also in the police’s drug watch list as a user. Investigators, however, were looking into reports that he was a burglar, although his mother maintained that her slain son was just a scavenger.

On Monday, President Duterte ordered the suspension of the government’s war on drugs following the kidnapping and killing of a Korean businessman by police officers. —WITH JODEE A. AGONCILLO