Sarah Celiz wept as she sat at house watching footage from Manila’s major airport on her telephone. They have been tears of unhappiness, and of reduction.
The previous Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, who had simply landed within the capital, was surrounded by officers and being taken into custody. The worldwide felony court docket had issued an arrest warrant over his bloody “warfare on medication”, wherein her two sons have been among the many tens of 1000’s of individuals killed in disadvantaged city areas.
A person who for years had appeared untouchable was lastly going through justice. “I used to be actually shocked. It was as if a bomb had immediately exploded,” Celiz mentioned. “I cried due to a lot pleasure and unhappiness. Disappointment as a result of we misplaced our family members … pleasure as a result of he [Duterte] is now the place he belongs.”
However, she added: “For me, it’s not sufficient. What I would like is for what occurred to my sons to occur to him as nicely … His household will really feel what we felt.”
Celiz’s two sons, Almon and Dicklie, have been killed in 2017, six months aside, throughout Duterte’s lethal crackdowns. Her space, Bagong Silang, in Caloocan, a poor district of Metro Manila, was one of many worst affected.
Almon, 32, a father of 5, was killed on 6 February that yr when a police taskforce arrived at a wake he was attending.
Celiz was at house when she heard the information from her daughter-in-law. She remembers racing exterior: “I felt like I used to be working on air, like my toes weren’t touching the bottom.”
She rushed to the spot the place her son had been shot, simply 10 minutes from their house, however his physique was now not there – associates had taken him to the hospital, the place he was pronounced useless on arrival. He had been shot in his chest and an arm.
Between 12,000 and 30,000 civilians are estimated to have been killed in reference to anti-drugs operations, between July 2016 – when Duterte took workplace – and March 2019, in line with information cited by the ICC. Most have been younger males, focused within the streets of disadvantaged city areas.
On the top of the killings, dozens of individuals have been killed in a single evening.
Six months after Almon’s killing, Dicklie, his 31-year-old youthful brother, a father of seven, was additionally killed. He had been out on a tricycle. Celiz was informed a bag was positioned over his head and he was taken to a police station. She discovered his physique solely the next day, at a funeral parlour.
The police mentioned he had fought again in opposition to their officer, a declare often made by authorities to justify the killings. He had been shot a number of instances, together with 4 instances the chest, and as soon as in his head. His physique was deserted within the streets, she was informed.
Duterte and his supporters have argued that allegations of wrongdoing needs to be handled by the Philippine justice system. But within the years which have handed since Celiz’s sons have been killed, there has by no means been any investigation. She says police at a neighborhood station informed her that even when she tried to file a grievance, there was no proof.
At the moment, Celiz cares for her 12 fatherless grandchildren. “Despite the fact that it’s onerous, I informed them the reality [about what happened],” she mentioned. The household struggles financially, she added. Her granddaughter cried just lately as a result of she couldn’t afford to purchase a particular gown to mark her highschool commencement.
“If their fathers hadn’t been killed, they wouldn’t have misplaced their father or mother. Now, I can’t do something [to financially support them],” she mentioned.
Duterte, who appeared earlier than a senate inquiry into the medication warfare killings in 2024, mentioned he provided “no apologies, no excuses” for his medication crackdown, saying: “I did what I needed to do, and whether or not you imagine it or not, I did it for my nation.”
Celiz feels solely reduction that he’ll lastly face the courts. At 11.03pm a aircraft carrying the previous president set off for The Hague, within the Netherlands, the house of the ICC. “I’m sorry to say this,” she provides: “That demon doesn’t know apologize.”
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