Before 22-year-old John Jason Montes left their house in Barangay Ermita, Cebu City last Monday for a basketball tournament, he told his mother Susana, “Bye, Ma, adto nako (Bye, Ma, I will go now). “
Little did Susana know that it would be the last time that she would see her son alive. Jason was among three illegal drug suspects killed in an alleged shootout with police on Banacon Island, Getafe, Bohol, Saturday dawn.
Earlier in Bohol, Dario Torremocha was roused from his slumber by his wife with news that Rowen Secretaria was in his house on the island and it would be the perfect time to sell their hog to him since the fiesta was fast approaching.
Torremocha was also killed in the alleged encounter with policemen.
“They wanted to sell the pig to have money for the hospitalization of their relative. Tulala and asawa kay dili siya makatuo nga napagan iyang bana (The wife is in shock because she could not believe that her husband was among the casualties),” said a Barangay Banacon official who spoke to Cebu Daily News on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, Jason’s parents Victor and Susana could not hold their tears as they talked to CDN in their house just five meters away from the barangay hall in the crowded district of Ermita yesterday, hours after Jason’s remains were brought home on board a pumpboat purportedly arranged by a barangay official.
“I am very angry with the policemen. If there was a warrant, then they should have looked for the subject. They didn’t need to kill my son who was innocent,” the 50-year-old mother said in Cebuano in between sobs.
“I thought that the game was only in Cebu City. I did not expect that it would be in Bohol. It was Jason’s first time to be in that place,” the 52-year-old father told CDN while his tears began to flow.
The tournament turned out to be on Banacon Island as part of the fiesta celebration of the island-village this Tuesday, May 31.
Jason’s team reportedly won second place, according to Victor, who only learned of his son’s whereabouts after neighbors in Ermita rushed to their house last Saturday with news that Jason was killed in a police operation in Bohol.
Victor and Susana, both food vendors in Ermita, said they could not reach Jason because they had no cellphones.
“I wouldn’t have allowed Jason to go to Bohol. I felt nervous when I learned that he was not in Cebu,” Victor recounted while holding his chest, sobbing.
The couple immediately boarded a banca from Ermita to Getafe, Bohol hours after the incident last Saturday to check on the report while hoping that Jason was still alive.
“I could not recognize my son. He was killed like a criminal,” Susana said of her time in the morgue at Getafe to identify her son.
In search for answers, the couple went to the site of the alleged encounter on Banacon Island and saw bloodstains already covered with sand, Susana said.
Jason’s family was not able to recover any of his belongings, she added.
QUESTION RAISED
Why was Jason killed?
The question continues to haunt Jason’s parents who insist that though their son experimented on illegal drugs two years ago, he was not a drug dealer.
A 10-year-old child in the island also reportedly told them that Jason raised his hand in an apparent act of surrender when police operatives allegedly sprayed bullets at him.
“They were asked to get down from the cottage. The child saw my son raise his hand and heard him say, ‘Monaog nako, sir (I’m going down, sir)’, but policemen still shot him anyway, at close range,” Susana claimed.
“Girakrakan gyud kuno nila (The policemen really sprayed bullets),” she said.
Jason was allegedly just sleeping in one of the cottages of drug suspect Rowen Secretaria where some members of his basketball team were billeted when police operatives arrived to arrest Secretaria.
“He is not a drug lord, he did not sell drugs. Everyone knows here (Ermita) that even our family is not involved in any selling of drugs. We were able to raise our children without illegal activities,” Victor said in Cebuano. Jason was the fifth of six children and worked as a painter.
His parents also denied knowing Secretaria personally although they have heard of him
GENEROUS
Victor remembers his son as a very generous man who, he said, even gave his brother P1,500 for a birthday celebration.
“He was also kind to his nephews and niece,” Susana added.
When asked if the family would file charges against the police, Victor said, “What can we do? We are fighting against the government.”
But Susana is inclined to ask for help from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).
Susana also expressed dismay over Cebu City Mayor-elect Tomas Osmeña’s Facebook post which branded her son as a drug “accomplice”.
“It’s as if he (Osmeña) already judged my son,” she lamented.
Police officials declined to comment, saying this will be tackled at a press conference today.
ARREST WARRANT
Early Saturday dawn, police from the Regional Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Group in Central Visayas (RAIDSOTG-7) and the intelligence branch of the Cebu Provincial Police Office swooped down on the house of Secretaria on Banacon Island, Getafe, Bohol, to serve a warrant of arrest on him. Secretaria allegedly tried to shoot it out with the police, resulting in his death and that of his two alleged cohorts Torremocha, 56, and Montes, 22, and the wounding of Ricardo Ostalano, who is still recuperating at a hospital in Tagabilaran City.
Initial police reports indicated that no drugs were recovered during the operation, only guns and ammunition.
REWARD
Cebu City Mayor-elect Tomas Osmeña said he would pay the police team P50,000 for the death of Secretaria but he wanted the police to verify whether the two other suspects who were also killed were really Secretaria’s cohorts.
“I didn’t do it (the police operation). I just supported and encouraged it,” Osmeña posted on his FB page. /with a report from Leo Udtohan