Duterte vs. the youth
THE Kaibigan Ermita Outreach Foundation describes Jefferson Bunuan, 20, as a “polite and soft-spoken” young man.
The foundation staffers knew him quite well: Jefferson had been a scholar and beneficiary for 11 years.
Jefferson had already finished the short course on Shielded Metal Arc Welding. But he had another dream: to be a cop.
And so Jefferson took up criminology at the Eulogio “Amang” Rodriguez Institute of Science and Technology. He was also a volunteer of Lambat Sibat, a PNP program which aims to prevent crimes in the country, according to the foundation.
Little did Jefferson know that cops would end both his dream and his young life.
At 11 p.m. of July 18, 2016, police raided the Sta. Ana, Manila, house where Jefferson was staying with his cousin Mark Anthony Bunuan, 18, and Jomar Manaois, 20.
The police killed the three young men in a purported gunfight.
The Manila Police reportedly said Manaois was the target of the operation, and that the Bunuan cousins were his cohorts.
*** On Dec. 6, 2016, unidentified gunmen shot and killed Emmanuel Lorica, 17, as he lay asleep inside a tent at an evacuation area in Pasig City.
Emmanuel was a Grade 10 student at the Eusebio High School, and a beneficiary of the Bobby C. Eusebio Scholarship.
As if to belatedly “justify” the murder, the barangay and the city police posthumously fingered him as a “drug courier” — an allegation denied by his family, teachers, and classmates. oOo Rowena Tiamson, 22, was set to graduate in October, 2016, with a degree in mass communications from Colegio de Dagupan.
The body of Rowena, a consistent honor student, was found on July 19, 2016, in Manaoag, Pangasinan. She was hogtied and bore a bullet in the head. A cardboard sign labeled her a drug pusher.
The police said Rowena was not in the “watchlist” of drug peddlers and users, and blamed vigilante groups for the murder.
The so-called vigilante groups have not been caught.
*** Roman Clifford Manaois, 20, just alighted from a tricycle in Dagupan City, and was paying his fare when masked men approached him and proceeded to gun him down.
Witnesses say Roman raised his hands at the masked men, but they still shot him on his side and, perhaps to make sure he’s dead, pumped a bullet to his head.
The family’s breadwinner as a working student, Roman was about to graduate from college and eager to work abroad.
***
On Aug. 18, 2017, the Caloocan City Police reported the killing of a “holdaper” who engaged them in a gunfight after he robbed a taxi driver at C-3 Road.
T’was just two days after officers of the same Caloocan City Police Department had shot and killed Grade 11 student Kian Loyd delos Santos.
The “holdaper” turned out to be Carl Angelo Arnaiz — an elementary honor student, Makati Science High graduate and former interior design student at the University of the Philippines.
It would take Carl Angelo’s family 10 days before they discover he was dead and find his body at a Caloocan City morgue.
An autopsy revealed Carl Angelo’s body bore signs that he was handcuffed, heavily tortured, and shot repeatedly at close range.
***
These are just five out of more than 13,000 people killed in President Duterte’s “war on drugs.”
The blanket police alibi that, in most of these cases, they have had to return fire at the “suspects” is now widely suspected to be just that — an alibi for murdering them.
Likewise, the authorities’ earlier claim on the existence of “vigilante groups” have not been pursued and investigated. Meanwhile, police officers have been found to have committed some of the cold-blooded murders themselves — simply because the official stories don’t add up.
President Duterte is ultimately responsible for the deaths of these children, students, and youth. This is his anti-drug war. It is public knowledge that he ordered the police to pursue petty drug offenders and even to plant evidence against them, if necessary.
Thr orgy of extrajudicial killings has achieved arguably nothing in terms of actually containing the drug menace. But it has undoubtedly produced thousands of orphaned families, and further — if not completely — eroded public trust in the police.
The thing is, Duterte clearly underestimates the people’s capacity to unite and fight. He is especially misreading the youth who see through the lies and have vowed to stop rising fascism and to challenge the drift to dictatorship.
The stories and spirits of Jefferson, Emmanuel, Rowena, Roman, Carl Angelo, and Kian Loyd are about to haunt Duterte and his death squads, and also summon a fearless youth-led movement against his rising tyranny.