De Guzman buries ‘son'

Eduardo Gabriel yesterday buried the remains of a teen found in Nueva Ecija and insisted these belonged to his son, 14-year-old Reynaldo de Guzman.

“Anak ko talaga yan. Ako nagpalaki d’yan. Lahat ng palatan

daan nandyan. Anak ko yan (That was my son. I had raised him. All the telltale signs were there. That was my son),” he said.

The boy was last seen alive with slain 19-year-old Carl Angelo Arnaiz. On Sept. 6, a boy was found in a creek in Gapan, Nueva Ecija. The head was wrapped in packing tape and the body bore 31 stab wounds.

Gabriel and Lina de Guzman identified the body as that of their missing son Reynaldo, nicknamed Kulot. But police on Monday said the body was not the missing boy’s because DNA samples from the parents did not match.

Despite the confusion over the identity of the dead boy, De Guzman’s parents yesterday proceeded to bury the remains at the Pasig Public Cemetery.

The boy’s clothes and shoes were placed inside the coffin in accordance to the Filipino tradition of “pabaon.” Gabriel cried for justice and said they will stop whoever would want to take away the body of their son from his tomb. “Diyos na ang bahala d’yan, batas na kung sino talaga (We leave it all to God),” he said.

From the cemetery, De Guzman’s parents and their youngest child were brought to a safe house under the government’s witness protection program (WPP).

The family had sought to be placed under the WPP after reporting the presence of suspicious-looking men near their house.

De Guzman was declared missing at about the same time that Arnaiz, allegedly a robbery suspect, was shot by police on August 18. Taxi driver Tomas Bagcal had claimed that he turned over Arnaiz to the Caloocan police alive. Police later claimed Arnaiz resisted arrest and shot at them.

The Arnaiz killing happened two days after Caloocan police shot dead 17-year-old Kian delos Santos, whose death sparked protests nationwide against the government’s war on illegal drugs.

Autopsy results later showed both Arnaiz and Delos Santos were kneeling when shot. Witnesses also claimed that Delos Santos was pleading for his life and was defenseless when he was killed.