Where the war began – Rappler

EXCLUSIVE: Families of the Philippine drug war's dead claim they know the man who shot their children and they're willing to speak his name

By Patricia Evangelista Photos by Carlo Gabuco

Rappler tracks the killings in Police Station 2-Moriones in Tondo, Manila, where the first drug fatality after Rodrigo Duterte's inauguration was shot in the early hours of July 1, 2016. Of the 2,555 drug suspects killed across the country in the first 7 months of the drug war, PS-2 Moriones claims at least 45. They were allegedly killed after police were forced into shootouts. At least 15 remain unidentified in police records.

Rappler conducted more than 40 interviews in the course of a 3-month investigation. Among them are the 7 who put their names and testimonies on the record, calling 4 of the alleged encounters summary executions and accusing the police of torture and harassment. This multimedia report presents police records and witness testimonies to profile the man residents call the demon of Delpan.

The people of the villages know the killer by name.

Rexs mother knows. She remembers the night he came looking for her son, when the killer shoved her so hard the baby she held nearly fell out of her arms.

Joshuas mother knows. She knows because he had a gun to her mouth. She knows who the killer is, knows enough that on the day her son was buried, she took a jeep and howled his name when it trundled past the police precinct.

You son of a bitch, she screamed. You killer, you killed my son.

Marios brother knows. His friends saw the killer drag Mario into the precinct and watched as he was beaten bloody. Mario's brother counted the bullet wounds himself. There were 7 in all.

Danilos aunt knows for sure. She says it was the killer who gave her his name.

The man who killed Joshua and Rex and Mario and Danilo was not in uniform. Neither were the armed men who were with him. But the mothers are certain the killer was a cop. The neighbors are certain the killer was a cop. Every witness to the 4 deaths is certain the killer was a cop.

There is no doubt on that one point. The cops also say the killer was a cop.

Part 1: 'I will kill you'

INTRODUCTION: Where the war began

On June 30, 2016, a few hours after he took his oath of office, the 16th President of the Republic of the Philippines appeared at the Delpan Sports Complex along Road 10 in Tondo, Manila to inform his new constituency that a war was at hand.

I am asking you, do not go [into drugs] because I will kill you, Rodrigo Duterte told the residents of Isla Puting Bato. It may not be tonight, it may not be tomorrow, but in 6 years, there will be one day that you will make a mistake and I will go after you.

Delpan sits at the bottom of Tondo, population 630,363, one of the capitals poorest areas where the shanties sit cheek to jowl with slaughterhouses and churches. Plastic tables covered with white tablecloths were scattered across the orange-painted gym. Duterte's people called the event a solidarity dinner.

President Rodrigo Duterte was late, held up by his first Cabinet meeting. When he arrived, the pineapple silk shirt was gone, traded for a striped polo shirt and a navy jacket with the sleeves rolled up. He said he ran for the presidency because he saw the Philippines drowning in drugs, criminality and poverty.

If someones child is an addict, he told the crowd, be the one to kill them, so it wont be so painful [to their parents].

Do it first, he said, because that person will die either way.

Those of you into drugs, Im done warning after the election, he said. Whatever happens to you, all of you listen, it could be your sibling, it could be your spouse, it could be your friend, your child, I am letting you know, there will be no blaming here. I told you to stop. Now, if anything happens to them, they wanted it. They wanted it.

The Presidents promise was kept. At 3 in the morning of July 1, hours after the Presidents speech, the earliest reported extrajudicial killing of the new regime occurred along IBP Road, near the corner of Road 10 and the Delpan Sports Complex.

The killing held the rough elements of what would be a pattern of deaths across the rest of the country in the next 7 months. Blotter number 1675 noted the body found of a male person alleged victim of summary execution. The unidentified victim, between 25-30 years old, about 53 tall, had been left with a sheet of cardboard over his body. It read, I am a Chinese Drug Lord.

The responding officers were members of the Delpan Police Community Precinct (Delpan PCP), one of 4 precincts under Manila Police Station-2 Moriones (PS-2).

At least 3 more drug-related killings committed by unidentified men would occur under PS-2s area of responsibility within the next two weeks. They were later reclassified as deaths under investigation.

And then the police killings began. By the time the war was suspended on its seventh month, a total of 2,555 were killed across the country in what the government now calls legitimate police operations.

Jimmy Walker

PART 2: 'I will kill you'

Jimmy Walker got his last name from his American grandfather and not much else. Just past 20, he is snaggletoothed and shy, all elbows and collarbones inside the loose white shirt, his strawberry blonde hair already showing dark roots.

He was close to his cousin Joshua Cumilang, the 18-year-old whose family nicknamed Wawa. Joshua sniffed solvent occasionally. Jimmy, who had bad lungs, never did. The boys were as good as brothers, even if Jimmy was often the butt of Joshuas jokes. Jimmy, bungi, Joshua called him. Jimmy the toothless. But it was Joshua who loaned Jimmy clothes, who fed Jimmy when Jimmy was so broke he couldnt afford a cup of rice.

The Cumilangs live in Isla Puting Bato, a sweaty maze of shanties tucked into the curve of the Manila North Harbor. Thick ropes of electrical wiring hang overhead, so low in some places that it is impossible to walk upright. The alleys are makeshift markets garlic by the bushel, cigarettes by the stick, powdered Oreo-flavored shakes sold beside roasted pig guts. The colors are bright a purple door here, a yellow awning there, graffiti scrawled big and broad over the few stretches of open wall.

One Friday afternoon, Jimmy, Joshua, and two other young men were sitting on a roadside ledge. The Cumilang shanty was behind them, down a set of stone steps. It was a month before Christmas. Joshua was counting the money he had saved for the holidays.

All of a sudden there were armed men. They were dressed in civilian clothing. Jimmy knew them from their rounds in the area. Its the ones who arent in uniform who kill here, he said.

One of them was the man Jimmy knew as Alvarez.

People would say, Stay away from that Alvarez, said Jimmy. Be careful, hes a killer.

That day, Jimmy said, Alvarez had a partner, a younger man whom Alvarez was training. Nobody was certain how they were related. They called him the other Alvarez.

The armed men started searching Joshua. They found the money in his sock, took it and pocketed it. They said the 4 young men had been using marijuana We werent, we really werent and made them stand with their hands on the tops of their heads. Two of the armed men herded Joshua down the steps to the short alley beside his house.

Joshuas mother Nenita came charging out of the Cumilang home, straight at the men who had seized her son. Sir, what are you doing sir, dont do anything sir, just jail him, please.

The younger Alvarez walked down the steps and aimed his gun at Joshua. Jimmy said his cousin looked terrified. He was begging, Ma, Ma, Ma.

It never occurred to me to stop them, Jimmy said. My mind blanked. I couldnt talk. My insides were trembling.

Alvarez aimed a gun at Nenita. She turned to run. The younger Alvarez let loose a shot. Nenita turned. She saw her son on the ground covered in blood. She tried to leap for Joshua. The younger Alvarez turned on her with a gun and chased her all the way to the street where she hid.

Alvarez took aim, said Jimmy, and shot Joshua again.

Neighbors rushed out of their homes after the gunshots. The street was crowded. The men who killed Joshua Cumilang walked over to a store just beside the Cumilang house. Witnesses said the men bought coffee and bottles of water with the money from the dead man.

Jimmy heard Alvarez on the phone. He said Alvarez was calling for backup.

The uniformed cops of the Delpan Police Community Precinct streamed in within minutes.

One of them stopped in front of Alvarez. Alvarez addressed the uniformed man as sir.

Sir, Wawa is gone, said Alvarez. Hes dead.

Good job, said the older man. Good job. Jimmy said the man raised both fists with the thumbs up.

The men made Jimmy carry Joshuas corpse into a pedicab. Nenita ran through another alley and jumped in. The two cops who were sitting with Joshua's corpse glared at her, but said nothing.

The pedicab stopped at an empty stretch of road. Nenita said a cop aimed a gun at her head. They pushed her out just before a boy darted past her to poke his head into the pedicab. One of the cops shifted his gun to the boy.

Nenita said the second cop held the other back.

Dont, he said. Thats a kid. You kill that one and theyll slap us with a case.

Part 3: 'They rape their mothers'

Delpan PCP Commander Rexson Layug

PART 3: 'Good job'

The trouble with drugs, Police Chief Inspector Rexson Layug told Rappler, is that they leave no man decent.

Layug is the commander of the Delpan Police Community Precinct (Delpan PCP), whose stark white building sits square under the Delpan Bridge. A 22-year veteran, he supervises the sprawling swath of shanties that includes Isla Puting Bato and a chunk of Parola, Tondo.

When theyre on drugs, sometimes, theyll even rape their grandmothers, he explained. Their grandmothers and their mothers. You can see it in the news. That's why they rape. Sometimes, they even kill their children, because they think theyre demons.

Layug was pleased with Project Double Barrel, the Presidents national operation against drugs. It was the Duterte administration that increased the number of policemen under Layug's command and allowed for more aggressive patrols.

Layug is a burly man, with a paunch and a lantern jaw. Since the beginning of the war on drugs, Layug has assigned an hourly beat to Isla Puting Bato, an area he described as one of his more chaotic territories.

It was one of those patrols that killed Joshua Cumilang, at least according to a report filed by the Manila Police District (MPD) Homicide Section on November 18. The spot report the account of the incident filed by police investigators described how an anti-criminality patrol walked into Purok 3 of Isla Puting Bato. The patrol noticed and chanced upon a group of men while examining a transparent plastic sachet in the act of extending over to another male companion. According to the report, the group scampered away when the policemen arrived.

In the story the police tell, one officer, a certain SPO1 Sherwin Mipa, followed the suspect who had the sachet. Joshua ran inside the basement of a small shanty. Mipa shouted for Joshua to stop. Joshua turned, already armed with a .38 caliber revolver." He fired twice, and missed.

The report said that Mipa, sensing that his life was [in] imminent danger [had] no other choice but to fire back, returned fire twice, thus hitting the suspect in the abdomen and shoulder.

The spot report also listed the collected evidence. They included a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber snub-nose revolver without a serial number, a P20 bill, and 5 plastic sachets of what appeared to be methamphetamine hydrochloride street name shabu, or crystal meth.

SPO3 Jonathan Bautista, the MPD Homicide investigator assigned to the case, said in an interview with Rappler that he had spoken to Nenita Cumilang. She told him her son did not fight back. She was, however, unwilling to file an affidavit at the MPD. Nenita later told Rappler the family couldnt file charges: Will they pay attention to me? Were little people nobody pays attention to. They salvage the big ones, dont they? So I did nothing.

Inasmuch as I could, I tried to convince her, Bautista said. I said, when I was asking her, For as long as you have any witnesses, the case will not close. There is still justice.

Bautista had written the spot report, but admitted there was some irregularity in the investigation process. Although he said he had spoken to SPO1 Mipa, the shooter on record, Bautista said all police officers involved in fatal incidents must each file either individual or joint affidavits to explain their version of events. He said none of the policemen on the scene, even Mipa, chose to submit reports to the Homicide Section. Bautista said he was forced to rely on spot reports written by the investigators of PCP Delpan and PS-2 Moriones.

To be honest, weve hit a blank wall, its like we're in limbo, he said. Considering that although theres this version of the story, the version of the police, I'm waiting for maybe someone with the courage to come out and say something like the allegations [Rappler] told us. Even if were cops, we wont stand back if the guilty need to be punished, definitely. We will file charges against them.

- Homicide Spot Report, 18 November 2016

In his interview with Rappler, Precinct Commander Layug claimed no cop under his watch had ever been injured during the drug war except for one who slipped and fell in the dark. In fact, he said, Delpan cops had never been shot at or been involved in any armed encounter with any resisting suspect during a patrol or drug operation since the beginning of the drug war.

His claim was a stark contradiction to the MPD's own police reports and media coverage. At least 11 fatal encounters with police occurred in Delpan alone, including the operation that killed Joshua Cumilang. An entry in the MPD Homicides police journal recorded the death of one Marvin Samonte, alleged drug pusher, killed on July 17, 2016. A news report detailed how Samonte was killed by members of the Delpan PCP in an apartment in Pier Dos, Tondo after allegedly resisting arrest.

The police team was led by Precinct Commander Layug.

Asked by Rappler if anyone in his unit had ever been involved in any shootouts with drug suspects during patrols, Layug said no.

No, no one has ever fought back.

Part 4: 'He looked for Mama'

Nelson Aparri

PART 4: 'They rape their mothers'

On the day after his son died, Nelson Aparri knelt just inside his front door with a rag and a bucket. He talked while he scrubbed. He said he was sorry. He said he couldnt even the score. He said maybe God would deal with the killers, because he couldn't himself. He bent over the floor, a lanky man in his late 50s, slopping water and tears over his sons blood.

It took a long time to clean.

It was Nelson who was closest to Rex. Rex was Papas boy. Even his mother Rowena agreed. It was only that night, just before the first shot was fired, that Rex Aparri screamed for his mother.

When he was about to die, Rowena said, he looked for me.

The house in Isla Puting Bato where 30-year-old Rex Aparri was killed sits along a short, skinny alley, so skinny that its possible to step out of one front door and into the door across. On September 13, 2016, at a little past 7 in the evening, word spread across the village that cops were coming. Nelson was afraid the family would be targeted, as Rex occasionally ran drugs. He had heard that every man inside a house during a raid ended up dead. He tried to drag Rex out with him.

Rex was stubborn. Not me, he said. Theyre not after me.

Rowena stayed. So did Rexs girlfriend Lori Ann and their 10-month-old son.

There were 5 armed men in all, none of them in uniform. Rowena was sitting on the front doors ledge. One of the men shoved her backward. She fell, Rex's son in her arms.

The man, she said, was the one Isla Puting Bato knew as Alvarez.

Alvarez told her they were looking for Rex. Two of the men stayed outside, shouting at neighbors to keep out of the way, threatening a teenager who had poked his head out of a window. Alvarez and another man climbed up the ladder to the second floor where Rex was tinkering with a radio. The fifth man stayed in the living room. He had Rowena and Lori Ann sit at a corner by the open door. He told them to put their mobile phones and wallets on top of the television. The women sat for half an hour, until the man guarding them walked to the bottom of the ladder with a folded packet in his hand what Rowena assumed was drugs. He called to the men upstairs.

Sir, you can have him brought down, sir, were killing him. Its positive.

Rowena began shouting Sir, he has nothing sir, how can it be positive?

Alverez and a second man brought Rex downstairs. He clung to the banister, weeping. Arrest me, please don't kill me, I have a son.

Rowena pushed the baby at Rex So he would have a shield then threw her arms around her son. It was a tangle of bodies, everyone pushing and shoving in a space the size of a bathroom. A mirror broke. One of the men hit Rowena with a gun, and kicked her out into the alley. She blacked out.

Lori Ann screamed. One of the armed men shoved her out, snatched the baby by the hair from Rex, then threw the wailing boy out to where Lori Ann knelt in the alley. She caught her son and knelt begging through the open door.

At the second shot she ran, and told Rowena that Alvarez had just shot Rex straight through the back of the head.

Nelson Aparri, standing in a nearby alley, heard the gunshots. He began to run home. Neighbors grabbed him by the arms.

No, they said, dont go. Theyll kill you too.

Nelson began to cry.

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Where the war began - Rappler