11 hours Ago By John Sitchon
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rapplerAds.displayAd( "mobile-middle-1" );CEBU, Philippines – Raquel Lopez still remembers the day when armed and uniformed men splayed her son’s lifeless body on a table like a pig for sale at the market.In the early hours of October 4, 2018, Lopez was alerted to the sound of three gunshots in her home in Barangay Ermita, Cebu City.
At first, she didn’t know who was shot and hoped none of her family members were hit by any stray bullet.When she had the chance, Lopez went straight to Rabby, her son, who was sleeping in his room. According to her, armed men carrying rifles barred her from entering, shouting “walang lalabas (nobody leaves).
”That moment scared her to her core, but what happened next traumatized her and her family for life.“Naa ma’y lamesa sa naninda og lugaw sa gawas. Ang akong anak giitsa nila sa lamesa murag baboy.
Patay na pero giitsa sa lamesa nga murag baboy,” Lopez told Rappler on Wednesday, March 12.(There was a table owned by the rice porridge vendor outside. They threw my son on that table like he was a pig.
He was dead but they threw him on the table like a pig.)Scared for their safety, Lopez and her family stayed inside the upper floor of their home, ducking and taking quick glances from their windows to see the cordons outside and men in camouflage uniforms.This happened during a police anti-drug operation, a partition of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s war against drugs — a time when Duterte’s supporters claimed that they had felt “safe.
” No justice, no peaceThere was no peace for the Lopezes even after they had retrieved Rabby’s body. According to Lopez, Royina Garma, Cebu City police chief during Duterte’s presidency, went to Barangay Ermita and allegedly scolded the family for holding a wake for their loved one.Garma’s words that Rabby’s mother could not forget were: “Bakit isa lang patay dito? Marami sila dito.
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rapplerAds.displayAd( "mobile-middle-2" );(Why is there only one dead? There are many of them here.)Lopez said that Rabby was a good son who loved his family.
She remembered how her son would step in to stop her and his father from fighting, how he would give his mother money to play mahjong with friends, and how he would care for his two kids.She explained that Rabby tooks medication to help with his late nights of working as a technician but was never involved in any illegal drug trade.“Sugot ko nga mapriso na lang unta to siya, wala na lang pusila.
Nalaya na siguro na...
wala na lang unta patya,” Lopez told Rappler.(I would agree to have him imprisoned, instead of being shot. He would have been free by now.
..they didn’t have to kill him)“Dili ko muingun nga safe to ang panahon ni Duterte kay kana siya basta muingon patay, patay gyud na,” the mother added.
(I would not say that it was safe during Duterte’s time because when he says they’ll kill, they would really kill.)Kill, kill, killSalvacion Hequillo also lost her son, Roberto, to the drug war. Before his death, Roberto told his mother that the government was out “to get him.
”According to local news reports, an unidentified gunman had shot Roberto on the back of his head on December 31, 2018, in Barangay Suba, Cebu City. Roberto was released from detention earlier in September 2018 on theft-related charges. The mother questioned the circumstances of her son’s death, pointing out that the long series of murders during Duterte’s drug war heavily targeted poor citizens more than alleged drug lords.
“The church says that killing is forbidden. There is a prison, there is a court that will decide what kind of punishment to serve depending on the crime he committed,” Hequillo said in Cebuano.For Hequillo, the poverty in the slums and rural areas is what pushes the poor to resort to use or sell drugs in order to get by.
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rapplerAds.displayAd( "mobile-middle-3" );“Nangandoy ra mi, mga pobre, nga makakaon sa adlaw-adlaw. Dili mani kagustuhan namo (We, the poor, just want to eat each day.
We did not want any of this),” the mother said.According to the national government, there were at least 6,252 people killed in police operations between July 1, 2016, and May 31, 2022. Human rights groups have estimated that victims of vigilante-style killings were up to 30,000.
Since 2018, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been investigating Duterte’s drug war for possible human rights violations.In October 2024, Duterte told the Senate that he had ordered cops to “encourage” suspects to fight back so that cops can justify killing them. In the same month, Garma told lawmakers that Duterte had a “model” in Davao to reward the killing of drug suspects.
While the mothers will never be able to bring back their sons, both Hequillo and Lopez hope that Duterte’s arrest on March 11 would bring them and many other victims of the drug war some form of closure. “I can only dream of my son now,” Lopez said in Cebuano. – Rappler.
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