Luzviminda Siapo who lost her son Raymart in March, went through the anguish that also engulfed Saldy and Lorenza delos Santos.—FILE PHOTO BY RAFFY LERMA
Luzviminda Siapo has practically given up hope that justice will be served in the case of her 19-year-old son Raymart, who was abducted and killed by unidentified gunmen on March 29 this year, a day after his Navotas City neighbor accused him of peddling marijuana.
But the former overseas worker now feels a sense of kinship with another family in neighboring Caloocan City who recently suffered a similar tragedy. For the past several days, Siapo has been closely following the case of 17-year-old Kian Loyd delos Santos, who was killed last week also because of supposed involvement in the drug trade.
But unlike Raymart, Kian was shot dead by the police. And while Raymart’s case has gone cold, that of Kian immediately led to a Senate inquiry, a murder complaint against three Caloocan policemen, and a fresh wave of condemnation from critics of President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on narcotics.
Still, Siapo feels that the scales may be finally tilting against the forces who, on flimsy or fabricated evidence, have taken the Raymarts, Kians and other victims of drug-related killings away from their families.
‘God is real’
In an interview on Friday, Siapo spoke of “digital karma” finally catching up with the killers, at least in Kian’s case.
She was referring to the closed-circuit television camera (CCTV) footage that surfaced after Kian’s death, showing how he was first dragged away by officers in civilian clothes before he was shot in a dark alley on the night of Aug. 16.
Apart from eyewitness accounts, the video clip raised doubts over the policemen’s claim that Kian was shot because he tried to put up a fight with a .45-caliber pistol. His family and friends strongly denied the allegations, saying the Grade 12 student was neither kept a gun nor served as a courier for a local drug pusher. (The Caloocan police chief later admitted in the Senate hearing that Kian became a drug suspect based on information posted on social media.)
“God is real,” Siapo told the Inquirer in a phone interview. “The perpetrators have finally met their match.”
Siapo said the CCTV footage in the Caloocan incident only proved that people “don’t fight back,” contrary to police statements justifying the death of suspects in many antidrug operations.
“Those who could really fight back are the drug lords, the bigtime dealers, those who have the money and the lawyers,’’ she said. “But the police hardly touch them. Why do they always go after the poor?”
Similar horrors
Siapo noted several similarities in Kian and Raymart’s case.
Both boys, she said, were falsely accused. Both were abducted before they were killed in cold blood: Raymart was told to “run” despite having club foot, while Kian, according to witnesses, was given a pistol by the officers who dared him to pull the trigger.
Both were shot in the head.
Both had mothers who were working abroad as domestic helpers when their sons were killed, and had to beg their employers for permission to rush home for the funeral.
Siapo contacted the Inquirer after hearing Senators Panfilo Lacson and Risa Hontiveros and Commission on Human Rights chair Chito Gascon mention Raymart’s case during the Aug. 24 Senate hearing on Kian’s death.
Having moved to a new address after losing Raymart, she is now willing to testify should there be another hearing and present witnesses “who could identity some of the 14 men who kidnapped Raymart the night he died.”
“According to my witnesses, barangay personnel and police were part of the team that abducted Raymart. They were all wearing masks.”
A day after the Senate hearing, she learned from her former neighbors in Barangay North Bay Boulevard-South, Navotas, that a group of policemen went to her old house.
Saldy and Lorenza delos Santos who buried their son Kian on Saturday.— Photo by NIÑO JESUS ORBETA
No movement
She surmised that the officers went there because Lascon had asked PNP higher-ups during the hearing for an update on Raymart’s case. “But are they really doing an investigation?”
Siapo said she had to come out now because Raymart’s case “had not moved forward” despite pronouncements from Director General Ronald dela Rosa, the Philippine National Police chief himself, that an investigation was underway.
“When I talked to a certain PO1 Latagan of Navotas police last May (or two months after the killing). The response I got from him was: ‘Who was your son?’ I had to explain Raymart’s case all over again. They have forgotten about him.”
It also pained Siapo to recall that right after Raymart’s death, Navotas police and barangay officials assured her that he was not on any drug watch list, but changed their tune and called him a pusher after the case made headlines.
With no plans of returning to her job abroad, the single parent now sells barbecue to raise her second child, a daughter aged 10.
“It’s painful when you look back and realize you were not there to defend your son. For a mother, that’s so painful and difficult,” she said. “I’ve tried to move on. But sometimes, when I’m alone preparing the skewers, I couldn’t help but cry. I miss my son.”