With hundreds of friends, relatives and supporters, the funeral procession for slain teen Kian Delos Santos early Saturday morning made a stop in front of the Caloocan City Police Station where officers tagged in his shooting are assigned.
The boy’s funeral car- a truck bedecked with flowers where his casket was placed- made a stop at Caloocan City’s Police Community Precinct 7, the station where PO3 Arnel Oares, PO1 Jerwin Cruz, and PO1 Jeremias Pereda are assigned, before proceeding to the funeral mass.
The officers are linked to Delos Santos’ controversial killing in an anti-drug operation on Aug. 16, which has drawn heavy public condemnation amid evidence that he was executed.
The policemen, however, maintained that Kian was a drug runner. They claimed that the teenager shot at them first.
The crowd, including priests and nuns, offered a prayer and a brief program before the boy’s remains were brought to the Sta. Quiteria Church.
“Justice for Kian! Justice for all!,” the attendees chanted.
“Stop the killings!” they said in Filipino — in reference to the recent spate of killings in overnight police operations under the relentless war on drugs.
Famed “running priest” Fr. Robert Reyes expressed hopes that there would be no whitewash in the investigation into Delos Santos’ death.
“I hope this won’t be a ‘double dead’ situation: they killed Kian, then they killed the truth. We should not let the operators of this government to prevail again. Kian is now the name and face of the truth,” he said in Filipino.
He also voiced concerns that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and its attached agency, the Public Attorneys Office (PAO), are handling the case.
“No whitewash. We’re worried that if we file this case at the DOJ, when it’s handle by PAO — who in the DOJ and PAO are cronies of [President Rodrigo] Duterte? What kind of justice are we going to get there? It’s very sad, we should not let the truth die with Kian’s death,” he adds.
The priest reiterated the call to end the killings.
“End the killings. We hope Kian will be the last. But after killing Kian, there are still a lot being killed. So stop the killings.”
Kian will be laid to rest at the La Loma Cemetery Saturday.
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