The names Kian, Carl, and Reynaldo — among thousands who perished in the Duterte administration’s bloody campaign against illegal drugs — were invoked by Cubao Bishop Elias L. Ayuban Jr. on Thursday to challenge Senator Pia Cayetano, days after the senator wept on the Senate floor over a shooting scare inside the chamber.
Ayuban’s open letter, posted on Facebook, arrived in the wake of a May 20 session during which Cayetano broke into tears after Sen. Risa Hontiveros delivered a privilege speech suggesting the Senate was carrying on as if nothing had happened following the May 13 gunfire incident at the Senate complex. Cayetano, who said she had been just two doors away when gunshots erupted, recalled telling the NBI chief: “Then do your job, make us safe.”
The bishop said he heard of the senator’s distress — the fear she felt, the thought of having to say goodbye to her children — and acknowledged it. But he drew a sharp contrast between that moment and the years of mass killings that preceded it, questioning why her voice was absent then.
“Noong gabi-gabing may duguang bangkay na nakahandusay sa tabi ng estero, noong may mga batang umuuwi na ang ama’y nilalamon na ng dilim at kabaong, noong si Kian ay nakiusap na siya’y may pagsusulit pa kinabukasan— kinakamusta mo rin ba at ng 12 mong kasama ang naulilang pamilya?” Ayuban wrote.
The bishop’s reference to Kian points to Kian Loyd delos Santos, 17, killed by police during a drug raid in Caloocan City on August 16, 2017, whose case — alongside those of Carl Angelo Arnaiz and Reynaldo “Kulot” de Guzman — prompted the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines to condemn the “remorselessness by which even the young are executed.”
Ayuban pressed Cayetano on whether compassion and justice are applied selectively depending on who is suffering.
“Kaya ngayo’y nagtatanong lamang ako: Ang hustisya ba’y may paboritong adres? Ang habag ba’y marunong pumili kung sino lamang ang dapat luklukan ng awa? Mas mabigat ba ang luha kapag ang umiiyak ay may posisyon, at mas magaan kapag ang bangkay ay mula sa laylayan?” the bishop said.
He also turned the senator’s well-publicized complaint — that no one from the minority bloc checked on her after the shooting — back on her, questioning whether she ever reached out to the families of those killed during the drug war.
“Kumusta ka? Kumusta ang iyong konsensya? Dinadalaw pa rin ba ng mga pangalang matagal nang ibinaon ng balita? Kian, Carl, Reynaldo at ang libu-libong iba pa na hindi man lamang naisulat nang buo sa pahina ng kasaysayan,” Ayuban wrote.
The bishop said he never heard Cayetano raise her voice against extrajudicial killings during the height of the drug war, adding: “Your anger never echoed in the halls.”
Cayetano’s breakdown on May 20 had itself sparked controversy beyond the bishop’s letter. Sen. Erwin Tulfo pushed back against her claim that no one from the minority bloc checked on majority members after the incident, pointing to messages of concern exchanged in a WhatsApp group shared among senators from both sides. Sen. Panfilo Lacson also noted that majority senators were seen on Facebook Live eating and having coffee after the incident.
Ayuban closed his letter by addressing the mothers left to grieve, the children rendered fatherless, and the communities that bore the weight of the anti-drug campaign — communities, he said, that had long learned to keep their heads down because looking power in the eye carried its own danger.
