When Heaven Wept

English Translation of the Homily at the Funeral Mass for Kian Lloyd De los Santos
By Most Rev Pablo Virgilio S. David, DD, Bishop of Caloocan
Santa Quiteria Parish Church
Diocese of Kalookan
Caloocan city

Dear brother priests in the Diocese of Caloocan, especially the parish priest of Santa Quiteria Parish, Fr. George Alfonso, MSC, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart here present today, the other guest priests, the De los Santos family, brothers and sisters in Christ, thank you for joining us in this Funeral Mass for the eternal repose of KIan Lloyd de los Santos.

Every human being has parents, even if some parents might choose not to acknowledge them. Jesus too was a human being; he too had parents. He acknowledged Mary and Joseph as his parents.

It is normal for a son or daughter to bury a dead parent. What we are doing today is not so normal; it is the parents who are burying their child. It's a reversal of roles. It is not right.

It is not easy to condole with parents who have lost a child. You cannot just say, "I know what you are going through," if you have never lost and buried a child who is at the prime of his youth and is just learning to weave his dreams. In such circumstances, it is better to keep quiet.

But there is one mother who can truly condole with Lorenza today--the Blessed Mother Mary. She has the right to say to Lorenza, "I know what you feel; I also lost my son. Like your son, he was also arrested, beaten up, and murdered, even though he was innocent."

For us Christians, Jesus is not just a human being. We profess faith in him as a Son of God. And so even God the Father in heaven has a right to say to Zaldy today: "I know what you feel; I also lost a son. I gave him up, for love of you." That is the reason why I chose the famous John 3:16 for our Gospel today. "For God so loved the world, He gave us His only Son so that all who believe might not perish but might have eternal life."

That must be also the reason why it's not just KIan's family that is weeping today. Heaven too is weeping. The weather is dark and gloomy. The rain poured down very early this morning. All the agony and sorrow of heaven pours down whenever God in heaven loses a single one of His children.

Lorenza and Zaldy, you are not alone. We have here with us today the other parents who have also lost a son or daughter to the cruel drug war. Your son Kian was actually not the first among the very young victims of the drug war. Just here in our vicinity in Caloocan, Malabon and Navotas, I can cite more than a dozen of them:

1) Nercy Galicio, 16 years old, from Bgy. Tumana, Navotas. He was shot in head on April19, 2017

2) Arjay Suldao, 16 years old, also from Navotas. He was abducted and murdered on March 20, 2017

3) Alvin Preda, 19 years old. He was murdered at Kapak Liit, in Caloocan on March 29, 2017

4) Allan Lastimado, 18. He was abducted by masked men at Market 3, shot along R10 in Navotas on May 3, 2017

5) Raymart Siapo, 19 years old. He was abducted by masked men and shot in Bangkulasi, Navotas on March 29, 2017

6) Irish Nhel Glorioso, 18 years old. He was also abducted by masked men on his way to market 3, shot along R10 Navotas on June 8, 2017

7) John dela Cruz, 16 years old. He was shot by masked men outside their home along R10 near bus terminal Navotas on january 26, 2017

8) Liezel Llimit, 16 years old. She was Shot and killed by unknown assailants near Pescadores, Malabon on June 20, 2017

9) Troy Villanueva, 17 years old from Libis Nadurata, Caloocan, abducted and killed. His body was found floating at creek on June 6, 2017

The most gruesome cases happened to the former neighbors of the De los Santos Family: the Santor Family, who moved to Bagong Silang after the slumdwellers' shanties in their area were demolished. Ten masked men were in search for an alleged drug suspect named Jay-R Santor. Perhaps incensed that his friends and family would not betray his whereabouts, they murdered all of them. Here's the additional list:

10) Jonel Segovia, 15-year-old friend of Jay-R Santor, from Bagong Silang Caloocan City

11) Angelito Soriano, 16years old, also a friend of Jay-R Santor, from Bagong Silang Caloocan City

12) Sonny Espinosa, 16 years old and also a friend of Jay-R Santor

13) Kenneth Lim, 20 years old, another friend of Jay-R Santor

All four of them were killed by masked men at 9pm of December 28, last year, 2016. They were not done yet. They also killed Jay-R's mother Cristina and brother Ednel, and his pregnant sister Analyn, including the unborn child in her womb. They killed eight people in a few minutes; they did not even succeed in abducting their target dug suspect, Jay-R Santor. They played hit and miss after a few days. They killed two other boys named Jay-Rs; they were the wrong Jay-Rs. Not Jay-R Santor.

I do not know if Mrs. Luzviminda Siapo is here. Her name symbolizes the Philippines: a contraction of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao LUZVIMINDA. She too lost her 19 year-old son. She learned about it only on Facebook, and had to beg her employer in Kuwait to be allowed to come home to bury her boy. Raymart was a handicapped boy; he was clubfooted. He had been accused of peddling marijuana. His name was submitted and included in the Barangay's drug watch list by a neighbor who had a quarrel with him over something that had nothing at all to do with drugs. Two days later, they were visited by fourteen hooded men. Not finding him at home, they picked up someone from the barangay, covered his face with a mask, and asked him to identify Raymart--who was on his way home. They abducted him, brought him to a dark place in Bangkulasi, told him to run. The poor boy apologized that he could not run because he was club-footed. So they beat him up, broke his tiny legs, and shot him in the head several times. (An eyewitness had seen the murder and narrated it to the mother later.)

I still recall that day when I said the funeral Mass for Luzviminda's son. She wailed inside the Church. Her tears flooded the glass window of her son's casket. She looked at my direction. I thought she was talking to me; I realized her gaze was fixed on the icon of the crucified Christ behind the altar and she cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

I also witnessed on TV the wailing of Lorenza as she was being interviewed by the media. She was asked if the belated accusation by the police was true, that Kian was an addict and a drug runner. She said, "How dare you say your accusations against my son after you have killed him! He was not even in the drug watch list and had never had a police record. Prove your charges! And let's suppose that my son is indeed an addict and a drug runner. Is that enough reason to kill him in cold blood?"

That is why there are many people here now who are condoling with you, Zaldy and Lorenza. They are here not because of politics. They are here to silently express their solidarity with you and the many others whose children have also died because they allegedly "fought back". Many of them have not bothered to file charges, for fear that another one of their children might also be abducted and killed. There are many witnesses who have not had the courage to testify in court, for fear of reprisal.

But thanks to the outpouring of solidarity, you found the courage to pursue legal means to obtain justice for your son. Even your neighbors found the courage to stand as witness, to testify to what they had seen and heard. I also salute the young lady Barangay Chair for having the courage to submit the CCTV footages. (The families of other victims had demanded such CCTV footages in other barangays and never got them. Most of them were told that the CCTV were not functioning. Almost always, they would be functioning again after a day.) Even the city mayor had the courage to demand an independent investigation--which I was invited to, when he held a meeting of the Peace and Order Council of Caloocan the day after Kian's murder.

You can't imagine how many people you have touched with your courage to make a stand. I pray that through your example, the many other relatives and friends of the so many other victims will also come out, so that the souls of their loved ones who have been killed, either in a police operation or by masked killers, will finally be laid to rest.

The murder of Kian Lloyd was just part of the so-called "One Time Big Time" Police operation that began last August 12. They killed 32 in Bulacan, 25 in Manila, and ten in Caloocan within two days. And we were all shocked when we heard these words on TV: "I hear that 32 had been killed in a police operation in Bulacan. That's good! If we can kill another 32 each day, perhaps we can lessen what ails this country."

In this Mass, we would like to cry out to the authorities in government: Enough with the killings! Stop the killings, for heaven's sake! Let us please sit down and discuss reasonably as citizens of one country. Let us help out in addressing this problem of illegal drugs properly, but not in a manner that has no respect for the law. Not in a manner that almost treats addicts and pushers as vermin, as non-humans. Addiction is a disease; let us please address it as a health issue!

I don't know if you know that Kian was murdered in the evening of the feast day of the patron saint of our Cathedral, San Roque. This saint lived in the medieval times when Europe was devastated by pestilences and plagues which they did not know yet how to deal with during those pre-scientific times. Perhaps because they were horrified about contamination, some kings and governors during those times, employed the ruthless solution of rounding up those who had been infected by the disease, not just to quarantine them but to literally exterminate them like chickens. It was during those times that San Roque our patron defied the kings and went for the path of mercy and compassion by daring instead to nurse the infected victims, not minding the risk on his own life. Therefore he contracted the disease himself. But God spared him of death. The healer was eventually healed.

Maybe God took Kian on the feast day of San Roque because he has a message for us all. So that we would wake up and realize that extermination is not the right solution to the modern pestilence of addiction to illegal drugs. The addicts and pushers are not the enemies but the victims. The cruel and simplistic solution of exterminating them will not rid our country of illegal drugs. Thousands of kilograms of shabu will continue to flood our country if there is no systematic effort to trace the source. We are here to plead with the government: Stop the Killings! Start the Healing! We can work together for the healing of addicts through community-based rehabilitation programs. But more importantly, let us heal the divisions, the conflicts, and the exchanges of cruel words. Let us rid ourselves of anything that diminishes our humanity.

Zaldy and Lorenza, we are one with you in your grief. Even heaven condoles with you. Rest assured that Kian's life has not been wasted, even if it was cut short by senseless violence and cruelty. It is not wasted because it has served as a thorn that has pricked the consciences of our people and has awakened them from moral slumber.

May God in His Mercy grant rest and peace to Kian and to the souls of all other victims of extrajudicial killings. May God keep them in his fatherly and motherly embrace for all eternity.

AMEN.

When the cure is worse than the disease

Extrajudicial killings in order to counter illegal drugs don't result to improved peace and order, they only escalate the violence.

When suspects' right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty is violated, justice isn't served and the rule of law is broken.

When trigger-happy law enforcers, murderous vigilante groups, and violent drug syndicates roam our streets, they aren't just killing each other, they also kill more innocents. Witnesses and advocates are eliminated, family members are used as leverage, war on drugs watch lists are exploited to settle non-drug related grudges, and deaths by mistaken identity or proximity to intended target abound.

The Pact of the Catacombs

Shortly before the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, 40 bishops met on the night of 16 November 1965 in the Domitilla Catacombs outside Rome.  In that holy place of Christian dead they celebrated the Eucharist and signed a document that expressed their personal commitments to the ideals of the Council under the suggestive title of the "Pact of the Catacombs". It also goes by the title "Pact of the Servant and Poor Church". Among the bishops gathered was Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Recife, Brazil and icon of justice and freedom in Latin America. The statements' counter-cultural ideals and latent radicalism however might have limited its impact to only a dedicated few. Yet in the ensuing years, the little pact of minority bishops gradually caught fire, inspiring the rise of liberation theology, the orthodoxy of the Church of the poor, and the praxis of building basic ecclesial communities as agents of Gospel-based change in individuals and society in many parts of the world and beyond Catholic circles.

.......

We, bishops assembled in the Second Vatican Council, are conscious of the deficiencies of our lifestyle in terms of evangelical poverty. Motivated by one another in an initiative in which each of us has tried avoid ambition and presumption, we unite with all our brothers in the episcopacy and rely above all on the grace and strength of Our Lord Jesus Christ and on the prayer of the faithful and the priests in our respective dioceses. Placing ourselves in thought and in prayer before the Trinity, the Church of Christ, and all the priests and faithful of our dioceses, with humility and awareness of our weakness, but also with all the determination and all the strength that God desires to grant us by his grace, we commit ourselves to the following:

1.      We will try to live according to the ordinary manner of our people in all that concerns housing, food, means of transport, and related matters. See Matthew 5,3; 6,33ff; 8,20.

2.      We renounce forever the appearance and the substance of wealth, especially in clothing (rich vestments, loud colors) and symbols made of precious metals (these signs should certainly be evangelical). See Mark 6,9; Matthew 10,9-10; Acts 3.6 (Neither silver nor gold).

3.      We will not possess in our own names any properties or other goods, nor will we have bank accounts or the like. If it is necessary to possess something, we will place everything in the name of the diocese or of social or charitable works. See Matthew 6,19-21; Luke 12,33-34.

4.      As far as possible we will entrust the financial and material running of our diocese to a commission of competent lay persons who are aware of their apostolic role, so that we can be less administrators and more pastors and apostles. See Matthew 10,8; Acts 6,1-7.

5.      We do not want to be addressed verbally or in writing with names and titles that express prominence and power (such as Eminence, Excellency, Lordship). We prefer to be called by the evangelical name of "Father." See Matthew 20,25-28; 23,6-11; John 13,12-15).

6.      In our communications and social relations we will avoid everything that may appear as a concession of privilege, prominence, or even preference to the wealthy and the powerful (for example, in religious services or by way of banquet invitations offered or accepted). See Luke 13,12-14; 1 Corinthians 9,14-19.

7.      Likewise we will avoid favoring or fostering the vanity of anyone at the moment of seeking or acknowledging aid or for any other reason. We will invite our faithful to consider their donations as a normal way of participating in worship, in the apostolate, and in social action. See Matthew 6,2-4; Luke 15,9-13; 2 Corinthians 12,4.

8.      We will give whatever is needed in terms of our time, our reflection, our heart, our means, etc., to the apostolic and pastoral service of workers and labor groups and to those who are economically weak and disadvantaged, without allowing that to detract from the welfare of other persons or groups of the diocese. We will support lay people, religious, deacons, and priests whom the Lord calls to evangelize the poor and the workers by sharing their lives and their labors. See Luke 4,18-19; Mark 6,4; Matthew 11,4-5; Acts 18,3-4; 20,33-35; 1 Corinthians 4,12; 9,1-27.

9.      Conscious of the requirements of justice and charity and of their mutual relatedness, we will seek to transform our works of welfare into social works based on charity and justice, so that they take all persons into account, as a humble service to the responsible public agencies. See Matthew 25,31-46; Luke 13,12-14; 13,33-34.

10.  We will do everything possible so that those responsible for our governments and our public services establish and enforce the laws, social structures, and institutions that are necessary for justice, equality, and the integral, harmonious development of the whole person and of all persons, and thus for the advent of a new social order, worthy of the children of God. See Acts 2,44-45; 4;32-35; 5,4; 2 Corinthians 8 and 9; 1 Timothy 5,16.

11.  Since the collegiality of the bishops finds its supreme evangelical realization in jointly serving the two-thirds of humanity who live in physical, cultural, and moral misery, we commit ourselves: a) to support as far as possible the most urgent projects of the episcopacies of the poor nations; and b) to request jointly, at the level of international organisms, the adoption of economic and cultural structures which, instead of producing poor nations in an ever richer world, make it possible for the poor majorities to free themselves from their wretchedness. We will do all this even as we bear witness to the gospel, after the example of Pope Paul VI at the United Nations.

12.  We commit ourselves to sharing our lives in pastoral charity with our brothers and sisters in Christ, priests, religious, and laity, so that our ministry constitutes a true service. Accordingly, we will make an effort to "review our lives" with them; we will seek collaborators in ministry so that we can be animators according to the Spirit rather than dominators according to the world; we will try be make ourselves as humanly present and welcoming as possible; and we will show ourselves to be open to all, no matter what their beliefs. See Mark 8,34-35; Acts 6,1-7; 1 Timothy 3,8-10.

13.  When we return to our dioceses, we will make these resolutions known to our diocesan priests and ask them to assist us with their comprehension, their collaboration, and their prayers.

May God help us to be faithful.