Cry in Kian burial: Stop the killings

The hundreds who joined the funeral march for Kian delos Santos on Saturday came from different sectors, but had a common rallying cry: Stop the killings.

The 17-year-old, whose shooting by police on Aug. 16, drew public outrage and sparked a Senate inquiry, was buried Saturday afternoon in a small niche at La Loma Cemetery amid intermittent rains.

“The heavens wept,” Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David said in his homily during the funeral Mass, comparing the grief of Delos Santos’ parents to that of the Virgin Mary who had to bury her son. And like Jesus, the bishop said, Kian was beaten up and killed despite being innocent.

Leading the funeral march were members of the Church, ecumenical human rights group and several militant organizations who described the boy’s death as proof of the government’s failure to address the drug problem.

The killing has electrified the country and galvanized what had previously been limited opposition to President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. Thousands of people have been killed since the President took office 14 months ago.

Police said they shot Delos Santos in self-defense after he opened fire on them during the “One-Time, Big-Time” antidrugs operation conducted by Police Community Precinct 7 lawmen in Barangay 160, Caloocan City.

But Erwin Lachica, 37, a welder who witnessed the shooting said that the Grade 12 student was standing outside the family’s store when the police, who were not in uniform, grabbed and started punching and slapping him before they put him in a headlock and dragged him away. No gunbattle took place, Lachica said.

Kneeling face down

CCTV footage from a neighborhood security camera shows two men marching someone, his head bowed, through a nearby basketball court, while a third man follows. The boy’s body was later found nearby, kneeling face down, and dumped near a pigsty.

The police officers, identified as PO3 Arnel Oares, PO1 Jeremias Pereda and PO1 Jerwin Cruz, told the Senate hearing on Thursday that they were bundling away a police informant, not Delos Santos. Multiple witnesses, however, said they recognized the youth.

Two autopsy reports, gunpowder tests, eyewitness testimonies and the CCTV footage also belied the police claims.

On Saturday, Delos Santos’ emotionally charged funeral march had mourners clad in white shirts and black ribbons chanting  “Justice for Kian, justice for all!”

Fr. George Alfonso, Sta. Quiteria, Caloocan, parish priest, prayed that the police would “salve the ailment of drug addiction in the country, not with guns, but with prayers and promise of reform.”

Comforting Saldy and Lorenza delos Santos, Bishop David pointed to the family members of some 20 other minors killed in the drug war who had come to offer their condolences.

“Only parents whose children’s lives were snuffed in the prime of their lives would be able to wholly comprehend your grief,” David said, singling out in his homily 19-year-old Raymart Siapo from Navotas, who was killed by vigilantes two months ago. He was told to run, but couldn’t because he was born with clubfeet.

“You know what Raymart’s mother’s name was? Luzviminda. Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao—the three island regions of the Philippines. Through her, the Philippines also lost a child [in Raymart],” David said.

‘Cruel war’

Personnel from the Department of Justice’s witness protection pogram flanked the Delos Santos family, who, apart from occasional emotional outbursts, were silent and refused to talk to the press.

Among the mourners were Public Attorney’s Office chief Persida Acosta, La Salle president Bro. Armin Luistro and Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes.

United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Agnes Callamard,  also tweeted: “My heartfelt condolences to Kian family and to all families victimized by this cruel war. #Makehisdeaththelast #Philippines.”

Callamard earlier described Delos Santos’ death as murder and said all unlawful deaths must be investigated.

The mourners were joined by members of militant groups Anakbayan, Bayan, ACT Teachers, Migrante International; ecumenical group Rise Up for Life and for Rights; and students from different schools and universities.

An emotional Saldy spoke fondly of his favorite son, describing him as the diligent shopkeeper of the family’s small school supplies store.

“Sometimes, I ask [Kian], ‘Why you, of all people? You know, we worked hard so that he could study and become a good citizen … But now he is no more,” he said through tears.

He said he hopes the officers involved in Kian’s death did not have children so they would not have to experience what they had gone through.

‘Beg forgiveness’

“I hope you’d go to Church as soon as possible. It’s not too late to beg for forgiveness,” he said, addressing the three policemen.

“I think those who stood on the streets for Kian were not just onlookers; they were genuinely sympathetic to him and what he stood for,” said running priest Fr. Robert Reyes, who had been at the forefront of protest actions for Delos Santos.

Reyes even likened the boy’s funeral procession to that of the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. in 1983, which drew a huge crowd. “ … The only difference was there was no social media in Ninoy’s time. Now, while the procession was taking place, people all over the world know exactly what was happening,” he said.

The boy’s killing has fueled longstanding public anxiety about the drug war’s brutal methods, and could generate wider opposition to a campaign whose critics have so far been largely limited to priests, activists, lawyers and a handful of prominent politicians.

Still, Duterte remains popular, said Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Manila-based Institute for Political and Electoral Reform.

Vulnerable

“It’s not really a tipping point,” he said of Delos Santos’ killing. “But Duterte is vulnerable. His popularity will take a hit.”

By the time the funeral march of about 2,000 people reached northbound Edsa, the mourners had occupied four of five lanes of the highway, with militant groups decrying the President’s “fascist” rule on a megaphone.  Delos Santos’ friends briefly took over to rap to a song they had composed for him: “Wala kang kasalanan, wala kang kasalanan, inosente ka,  Kian! (You are innocent, Kian)!”

“We no longer have our joker,” said one of Delos Santos’ friends, Sharmaine Joy Adante, 15. He liked joking around and didn’t do drugs, she said.  He had wanted to join the police so that his mother, who works in Saudi Arabia, could afford to live in her own country, the girl added.

Reyes said he hopes the people’s call to end the killings does not get buried alongside Delos Santos.

“We should ask everybody not to let this day pass without praying that the Lord (would) make us understand what Kian had done for us, and what He wants us to do for Kian and the other victims,” he said. “Kian is no longer just a 17-year-old boy. He means something more than just one life.” —With a report from Leila Salavaerria and the wires