The Philippine Truth Commission held its first public hearing today on alleged extrajudicial killings during former president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, opening with the case of a teenager slain in 2017.
At the hearing at the Pius Center in Paco, Manila, Luzviminda Siapo testified about the killing of her 19-year-old son, Raymart Siapo, who had a clubfoot.
Siapo was working in Kuwait when her son was abducted and killed by unidentified gunmen on March 29, 2017 in Navotas City.
“Sana kung may kasalanan ‘yung anak ko, may due process din. Hindi, walang ganun kay Raymart. Walang due process. Napa-barangay siya. Kinabukasan dinukot siya ng 14 masked men,” Siapo recalled.
(“If my son did something wrong, they should have given him due process. But no, there was no such thing for Raymart. No due process. He was brought to the barangay. The next day, he was grabbed by 14 masked men,”Siapo recalled.)
She said her relatives told her that armed men entered their home looking for Raymart, who fled to a nearby house. Her family tried to report the incident to the police but received no response. Hours later, they were informed that Raymart had been found dead.
“Ang bilis ng oras ng pagpatay nila. Ganun sila kabilis pumatay ng tao,” Siapo said.
(“They killed him within hours. That’s how quickly they killed people,” Siapo said.)
Forensic pathologist Dr. Raquel Fortun, who examined Raymart’s remains, was also present at the hearing to explain her findings.
She found irregularities in the teenager’s medico-legal report, including the unusual trajectory of the bullets that struck his cheeks and the fact that he was declared fully nourished despite his thin body frame.
The commission, organized by the Catholic Church and civil society organizations, will document killings and abuses linked to the previous administration’s bloody anti-illegal drug campaign through testimonies of the relatives of the victims.
According to Truth Commission Chair and former International Criminal Court judge Raul Pangalangan, the goal of the hearings is not to prosecute but to enable the victims to share their story.
“Kailangan itong truth commission para mabahagi sa bayan natin ang pinagdadaanan ng mga karamihan ng kababayan natin na biktima dito sa drug war,” he said during the hearing.
(“We need this truth commission so the public will know what happened to most of the victims of the drug war,” he said during the hearing.)
In a separate interview, Pangalangan revealed that the commission may forward significant findings from the hearings to relevant government offices and international organizations.
The commission is set to hold its next hearing on Aug. 27 to hear another testimony.
