KILL KILL KILL (20)

‘KILALANIN mo na. Huwag mo kaming sabikin,” ani Sherwin Gatchalian tungkol sa sabi ni Al Tengco, Pagcor chair, na dating Cabinet member na lobbyist ng mga POGO sa bansa. Nang sabihin ni Tengco na kikilalanin niya ang lobbyist, batid namin na hindi siya seryoso. Nilalaro lang tayo. Malamang na hindi totoo ang sinabi niya.

Hindi dapat sineseryoso si Tengco sa maraming bagay. Wala siyang track record sa pagiging seryoso. Biro sa kanya ang maraming bagay sa mundo. Kung totoo ang kanyang sapantaha, marapat lang na kilalanin niya sa publiko ang dating Cabinet member na nag-lobby sa Pagcor para sa mga POGO. Ano masasabi ni Bong Go na minsan naging Cabinet member bago naging senador? Nakakabingi ang kanyang katahimikan sa isyu ng mga POGO.

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PAGPAPATULOY ito ng pangalawang tsapter ng aking aklat “KILL KILL KILL Extrajudicial Killings in the Philippines; Crimes Against Humanity v. Rodrigo Duterte Et. Al.” Tinalakay ko ang ilang yugto ng karahasan at kalupitan sa ilang patayan ng giyera kontra droga.

FAKE CAUSES OF DEATH
THE case of Lenin Baylon, a minor, was different. He was killed in police operations on drugs, but his death was not included in the official statistics. Reason: His death certificate said Lenin Baylon died of bronchopneumonia and not of a stray bullet that came from a gun of one of the police officers in a police operation in their community. It was the night of December 2, 2016, when police operatives conducted an operation in a depressed community in Caloocan City. Lenin, 9, was playing computer games in a shop, when he and other computer game enthusiasts heard a commotion. They got curious and they went out of the shop.13

At that time, the Duterte administration was in the middle of its bloody but failed war on drugs. A motorcycle riding-in-tandem, together with persons who were described as part of a vigilante team, shot dead two women, who were described as “drug users.” But a stray bullet struck Lenin. He was immediately brought to a hospital, but he died after three days. His father, Reynaldo Baylon, said witnesses failed to identify the people involved in the police operations, a situation that had made it difficult for the Baylon family to pursue immediately a legal course of action against the culprits.

The story did not end in his son’s death. It took several twists, leading to complications. The father said certain police officers, who were not identified, insisted that he signed a waiver to say that his son died of bronchopneumonia. He protested but he could not do anything, as the police officers prevailed upon him. The official death certificate said bronchopneumonia was the cause of his son’s death. Lenin Baylon was the youngest of his 13 children. At that time, no autopsy on his son’s body took place.

OFFICIAL CHANGE. Rodrigo did not relish the idea of being coerced to enter a fake cause of his son’s death. He went to the Regional Trial Court of Caloocan City, asking for a change in the official reason for his son’s demise.The RTC, in a decision, rejected his claim. The RTC said no “expert witness” had come to say that Lenin died of a gunshot wound. The RTC did not accept the Medico-Legal Certificate although it cited the shooting incident but said that since no autopsy on Lenin’ body took place, it could not grant the change of cause.

This development prompted Rodrigo to seek the assistance of Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment through Alternative Legal Services (IDEALS), a civil society organization of lawyers specializing in human rights issues. Rodrigo, with the help of IDEALS lawyers, sought a motion for reconsideration from the RTC, but, just like what had happened before, it did not recognize the additional documents submitted by the Baylon family and rejected the MR. The Baylons went up to the Court of Appeals (CA). This time, the CA, after six years, agreed to change Lenin’s death certificate to “death by gunshot wound.”

On November 15, 2022, the three-man 7th Division ng CA: “The Baylon family did not need a medico-legal expert’s testimony to correct Lenin’s death certificate… Matter of factly, we find that the appellant was able to prove with preponderance of evidence that indeed, Lenin died due to a gunshot wound (on his right chest near his armpit) even in the absence of a post mortem examination.” CA Associate Justice Roberto Quiroz wrote the decision and Associate Justices Ramon Bato Jr at Germano Legaspi concurred.

Apparently, Lenin Baylon’s case was only the tip of the iceberg. According to IDEALs lawyers, an undetermined number of victims of EJKs have listed what appeared to be fake causes for their deaths. This is apparently to hide the actual score of deaths under the bloody but failed war on drugs , they claimed. By falsifying the cause of death of the EJK victims, the architects of the bloody but failed war on drugs expected a lower count.

The case of Thelmo Blas was another instance of fake cause of death, according to Dr. Raquel Fortun, a forensic pathologist. His death certificate said he died of pneumonia. But Fortun found a hole in the skull of Blas, when she did a forensic examination of his body. Fortun said she met Aurora in September, 2022, as she witnessed the exhumation of her husband’s remains. Reuters, the British-owned news agency, has come out with an investigative report in 2022 about the reported proliferation of death certificates of victims of EJKs with fake causes of death. Reuters said:

“When Rodrigo Duterte began campaigning for president in 2016 on a centerpiece program to launch a brutal war on drugs that centered in the murder of people involved in drug use and trade, Aurora Blas feared for her husband’s safety because Duterte was bent on an anti-drug war that erased the distinction between users and pushers. For Duterte, they were one and the same. Aurora said she joined a church group and prayed for Duterte not to win, but it was a prayer that brought the opposite. Husband Thelmo was a jeepney driver. They needed the money from his long working hours. Thelmo resorted to the use of shabu (methamphetamine) to stay awake, Aurora said. Her husband was never addicted; he was never violent; and there was food on the table. Thelmo supported his family quietly.”

PROVEN SYSTEM. Thelmo told Aurora not to worry. In his way of reassuring her, Thelmo told her that he knew of what he described a proven system to dodge drug tests, escape the prying probers’ eyes on the drug issue, and come out clean. He claimed that by refraining from taking drugs and drinking more water for two weeks before a scheduled drug test to get a driving license, he would come out clean and get his license. It was proven in his case, he told her. He wore a bracelet with Duterte’s name on it and elected Duterte, who was nicknamed “The Punisher,” in the 2016 presidential elections. A month after Duterte was sworn in, Thelmo disappeared. Aurora searched three police stations in Caloocan City but to no avail. She went to funeral parlors and on the fourth parlor, she saw Thelmo’s lifeless body.14

The police version said police officers responded to reports of gunfire at around 3 a.m. on Aug. 1, 2016. They found Thelmo’s body dumped by the side of the road, his face wrapped in masking tape. He was found with three sachets of suspected shabu and a placard in Filipino that read: “I am a pusher, do not copy me.” According to the Reuters account, police reported that Aurora told them on Aug. 2 that Thelmo was “involved in illegal drug activities,” and that she had refused an autopsy and an investigation into his death.

Aurora told Reuters she did not speak to any police officer or investigator after Thelmo died. She claimed she was not aware of the contents of the police report. Neither was she provided a copy of the waiver she signed at the funeral home either. A mortician in the funeral parlor advised her to place bronchopneumonia as the cause of death on her husband’s death certificate. An autopsy could mean an expenditure on her part. She acceded because she did not have the money for an autopsy. It was ironical that when Dr. Fortun did a forensic examination on his exhumed body, the bracelet with “Duterte for President” fell on the floor, according to the Reuter account. (Itutuloy)