#RememberKian brings me back to covering his funeral three years ago as I stood before his tombstone and found out that we share the same birthday; what was more tragic for me was finding out from his friends mere moments after he was buried that he wanted to become a policeman.
I remember Kian Loyd Delos Santos' father, Saldy, as I was writing my thesis on the depiction of state violence in FPJ's Ang Probinsyano. I remember his father in tears, telling before a Senate hearing how his son wanted to be a policeman because of the teleserye. #RememberKian
Had Kian Loyd Delos Santos been alive, he would've turned 20 last May, he could've been in college now. That Kian Loyd wanted to be a policeman and that he was brutally killed by policemen three years ago is perhaps one of the saddest tragedies of his unjust death. #RememberKian
Kian Loyd Delos Santos was only 17 when the police killed him three years ago. He's not only minor killed in the drug war since then: from July 2016 until December 2019, at least 122 children have been killed in police operations and drug-related vigilante killings. #RememberKian
When I #RememberKian, I am reminded of one of the reasons why I decided to become a human rights worker despite all the dangers, red-tagging, threats, sleepless nights, the dread of waking up to horrible news of killings and arrests and constantly wondering when I'll come next.
When we #RememberKian, we do not only remember the name of Kian Loyd Delos Santos: we remember the 122 minors and the thousands more killed in the government's bloody and sham program. We do not forget. We continue to fight. Without justice for one, there is no justice for all.
Read and download "How Could They Do This to My Child?", the report of the World Organization Against Torture and the Children's Legal Rights and Development Center on the killings of minors and children in the government's bloody and sham drug war, here: omct.org/files/2020/06/…
