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(This should have been under the topic "Talk of the Town". Here's hoping the webmaster can transfer this thread, with thanks. My apologies.)

WHEN HEAVEN WEPT



Gospel: John 3:16ff.

By Bishop Pablo Virgilio S. David
Santa Quiteria Parish Church
Diocese of Kalookan
Caloocan city

Dear brother priests in the Diocese of Kalookan, 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.

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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:

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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.

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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.

http://www.veritas846.ph/

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