‘Children unsafeunder Duterte’

MANILA, Philippines - An alliance for child welfare warned the people that children are no longer safe under the administration of President Duterte following the growing outcry over the killing of a 17-year-old high school student during an alleged anti-illegal drugs operation of Caloocan City policemen last Wednesday.

“Police units are now in a competition of killing not just suspected drug users and pushers but also claiming innocent lives,” said Eule Rico Bonganay of the Salinlahi Alliance for Children’s Concerns.

“President Duterte makes it easier for the PNP (Philippine National Police) to get away with murder with his promised protection. Nanlaban (resisted arrest) has become a usual alibi together with tanim droga (planting drugs) and tanim baril (planting guns),” he added.

Contrary to the claim of presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella that the killing of Kian Loyd delos Santos in Caloocan was just an isolated case, Bonganay said the situation is a massacre of poor children and their families.

“Kian’s death is not an isolated case, it is a systematic massacre, a mass murder of poor children and their families,” he said.

“When they killed a five-year-old girl last year, Malacañang declared her as collateral damage. Now they want Kian’s death declared as an isolated case. Truly, being heartless is the change that this administration is trying to propagate,” he added.

Bonganay was referring to the case of five-year-old Danica May Garcia who died after two men looking for her grandfather barged into their house in Pangasinan last year.

Duterte earlier branded Garcia’s death as collateral damage of the war on drugs.

Based on monitoring by the Children’s Rehabilitation Center, at least 31 minors have died in connection with illegal drugs-related incidents, including police operations.

The cases include four-year-old Althea Barbon who died in Negros during a drug sting operation involving her father, 17-year-old Hideyoshi Kawata who died in an operation also in Caloocan and five-year-old Francis Mañosca who was killed with his father by unidentified gunman in Pasay.

Salinlahi noted that more than 60 people have died in different police operations in Bulacan, Metro Manila and Cavite last week, including Kian, in Barangay 160 in Sta. Quiteria, Caloocan.

According to witnesses and CCTV footage, police officers blindfolded and dragged the boy away. He was asked to hold a .45 caliber pistol and was ordered to fire the gun and run. Forced to comply, Kian cried while running then policemen shot him dead.

The group also expressed concern over the possible increase in the number of killings among children because of the random drug testing among high school students after Department of Education

Secretary Leonor Briones signed Memorandum Order 40.

“High school students are now open targets for police brutality and vigilante killings. Duterte’s war on drugs has now become every parent’s worst nightmare,” Bonganay said.

Independent probe

National Youth Commission chair Aiza Seguerra urged the Department of Justice and the Department of Social Welfare and Development to create an independent body that will investigate all cases of death and involvement of youths in drug-related cases.

“We want to curb the drug menace; however, we are alarmed by the deaths and injury of minors in the process,” Seguerra said.

Commission on Human Rights Chairman Chito Gascon also raised alarm over the killings and vowed to investigate all cases, especially those involving minors.

“We are alarmed by the spate of killings recently. The police are obligated to comply with established police operations procedure which guarantee and respect human rights,” he said on Friday.

“There are constitutional guarantees of due process and presumption of innocence. Our security forces must abide by them and, if in the course of investigation we discover that there are lines that have been crossed and laws have been breached, we expect the state to hold the perpetrators to account,” he added.

Youth groups held yesterday black ribbon protests to denounce the killings in relation to the drug war.

“The cold-blooded murder of 17-year-old Grade 11 student Kian Loyd delos Santos by policemen in Caloocan City is yet one more example of how fascists in power fabricate fake encounters and get away with the extrajudicial killing of the poor,” said Anakbayan national chair Vencer Crisostomo.

“If this campaign of mass murder continues, then we are not shy to predict that Duterte will easily become the most hated Philippine president regardless of his supposed popularity. More and more are realizing how the anti-drug war has largely killed the poor even as big drug lords, and protectors in the bureaucracy, police and military, are untouched,” he added. – With Rhodina Villanueva