Grief and rage

Reynaldo de Guzman, 14 years old. Kian Delos Santos, 17 years old.

They are children under the definition of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Carl Angelo Arnaiz and Raymart Siapo, both 19 years old, just passed their childhood.

They are all dead. Killed brutally by persons who have lost their humanity.

And the terrible thing about it is that the suspected killers are police officers, paid by taxpayers to protect the citizens.
The death of these four young people, and many more that are still being documented, are testaments to the culture of killing cultivated by President Duterte’s war on drugs.

The stories of those four are heartbreaking:

Howie Severino talked to witnesses who witnessed the killing of Raymart last April.

”Witnesses say he was last seen at night being brought by motorcycle to a nearby bridge, and being told to get down.

“Takbo, takbo!” his captors taunted. Raymart, who was supposed to start a new job the next day, didn’t run and just sat down. One of the assassins, called a “birador” by the police, shot him below the chin and on the side of his head.

”Raymart couldn’t run even if he wanted to – he was born with two club feet, a congenital deformity that made him appear to be walking on the sides of his feet. He was a Person With Disability.”

Last August 17, Kian Delos Santos had just finished helping his father close their store when Caloocan policemen came for a drug sweep. They grabbed the boy and brought him to a dark alley and hit him demanding from him names of drug pushers and users in the community. Kian was heard begging, “Tama na po, tama na po, may test pa ako bukas.”

The policemen gave him a gun and the boy asked, “Ano gagawin ko dito?” The police said, “”Hawakan mo at tumakbo.” The boy refused and they killed him while he was on his knees.

Carl and Reynaldo, known to his community as “kulot” are residents of Chico Alley in Cainta, Rizal. Carl is studying at the University of the Philippines. He graduated valedictorian in elementary and spent his secondary schooling at the Makati Science High School.

Reynaldo was a Grade 5 student at the Maybunga elementary school in Pasig City.

Late evening of Aug 17 Carl and Reynaldo went out to buy snacks. That was the last time they were seen alive.

Ten days after, Carl’s parents found his body in a morgue in Caloocan city. Police report said Carl hailed a cab in Navotas City at around 3:30 a.m. on August 18. He allegedly tried to rob the driver and was chanced upon by the police.

Reynaldo’s body was seen floating on the river on Sept. 6 with his face in masking tape. The corpse had 30 stab wounds. Medico Legal said he must have been killed a day or two ago.

The theory was Reynaldo was a witness to the killing of Carl. That’s why he had to be killed.

We are grieving the death of these kids. We are in rage by the barbarity that reigns in our streets.