Mother recalls son’s ‘drug war’ killing, and the ‘intimidation’ that followed

MANILA, Philippines — Another mother who lost a teenage son to the Duterte administration’s war on drugs recounted to the civil society-led Truth Commission how she faced either intimidation or lack of support from authorities in her quest for justice.

Mariza Hamoy, mother of 17-year-old Darwin who died in what police described as a drug bust on Aug. 15, 2016, narrated her ordeal during the fact-finding body’s second hearing on Thursday.

She recalled spending days in search of her son’s body, being denied access to police records, having no ally to stand as witness and filing complaints that were later dismissed.

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Darwin’s killing was among the thousands documented in official records about drug suspects who supposedly fought back or resisted arrest (“nanlaban”) in police operations. The crackdown was part of “Oplan Double Barrel,” the antinarcotics policy of former President Rodrigo Duterte, with then Philippine National Police chief and now Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa as lead enforcer.

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READ: Truth Commission on drug war launched: ‘For catharsis’

Duterte has been detained in The Hague, the Netherlands, on charges of crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court (ICC) since his arrest in March last year. He is expected to appear in court when trial starts Nov. 30.

Dela Rosa remains in hiding following the issuance of an ICC arrest warrant on the same charges.

A mother’s ordeal

Civil society groups in May launched the Philippine Truth and Reconciliation Commission, an independent body that seeks to document extrajudicial killings and other abuses linked to the drug war.

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The commission held its first public “truth-telling session” on Aug. 14. The first witness was Luzviminda Siapo, mother of a 19-year-old disabled man who was shot dead by masked gunmen in 2017 on suspicion that he was peddling marijuana and “shabu” (crystal meth).

At Thursday’s session, Mariza, a street sweeper at Barangay Payatas, Quezon City, said that on the night before Darwin was killed, she and her husband were with their son attending a wake of a colleague.

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During the wake, Darwin left ahead of them to join a birthday celebration at a house nearby.

Around past midnight, Mariza heard multiple gunshots. She later learned that Darwin was asked to buy cigarettes during the neighborhood party, and that the police showed up just as he was handing the cigarettes to the one who asked him to do the errand.

“No questions were asked and the police officers just shot him and the others,” said Mariza in her nearly three-hour testimony.

A spot report by the Quezon City Police District, which officers initially kept from her, showed that five people were killed and one was wounded in a buy-bust operation that day.

Two unnamed fatalities were cited in the report, but Mariza immediately knew that one of them was Darwin based on the physical features and the clothes described.

Mariza stressed that her son was never involved in the drug trade. She looked for him at two hospitals in Quezon City, where she was told no record of Darwin was ever registered. Eight days after the police operation, Mariza finally found her son at a funeral parlor in the Kamuning district—but she had to shell out P50,000 to have the body released.

Mariza later filed two complaints—first at the Commission of Human Rights, which later reached the Office of the Ombudsman; the second at the PNP Internal Affairs Service, which reached the Office of the President.

Both complaints were eventually dismissed.

No one among the people she asked for help agreed to come forward as witness in Darwin’s case. They included the lone survivor of the police operation, a tricycle driver she identified only as “Harold.”

Mariza’s husband was also not spared as he was charged five times starting in 2017 with drug-related offenses and illegal gambling, which she said had no basis at all since his drug tests yielded negative results.

She said someone, whom she did not identify, demanded that she withdraw her complaints in exchange for the dismissal of the charges against her husband.

“My husband told me: Don’t drop the case. Let me go to jail; I can take it. Keep our son’s case going since you’ve already started it,” Mariza told the commission.

Intimidation

Lawyer Raul Pangalangan, a former ICC judge who now chairs the Truth Commission, said it was important to highlight how the families of drug war victims were intimidated to “short-circuit or frustrate the remedies available to them under the law.”

“[It was] a way of making sure that the legal processes in government don’t work … To prevent (them) from filing cases, or, if they have filed cases, for them to withdraw or not testify,” Pangalangan, also a former Inquirer publisher, said at a briefing after the session.

Forensic pathologist Raquel Fortun, one of the commissioners, noted how Mariza and others like her “lost every step of the way.”

“Who killed them? It’s the same people investigating … Remember that these (families) have no resources, their connection is limited, and they have no money. That’s why it angers me when people say ‘just file a case.’ Do you know how hard it is, especially if you are a nobody and a victim?” she said.

Fortun again noted the lack of proper protocols in the police handling of the victims’ bodies, the inaccessibility of information, and the apparent acquiescence of some doctors in manipulating reports on the cause of death.

Mariza urged other families who had the same experience to continue fighting for justice, to keep speaking up, and to not lose hope as there are nongovernment entities that can help them.

“That was my child … As long as I am alive, I will not give up— win or lose,” she said.

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The next Truth Commission hearing is scheduled for Sept. 11, where another mother is expected to share the story of her 23-year-old son who was killed in 2019. —WITH A REPORT FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH