Survivors still reckon with Duterte’s drug war

Joel Ejorcadas and Marlon Pepito Jr. stayed for hours at the shrine dedicated to the victims of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody drug war, with candles lit in memory of their murdered kin.

- By EJ MACABABBAD

The remains of their loved ones are part of the 111 victims of extrajudicial killings memorialized at the “Dambana ng Paghilom,” located inside the La Loma Catholic Cemetery in Caloocan.

Ejorcadas and Pepito waited for their candles to melt before returning to the shanties in Navotas. Both made the candles themselves, part of the work they’ve done under Redemptorist brother Ciriaco Santiago III, who has employed relatives of drug war victims to be candlemakers and baristas.

The pain of losing their loved ones in the drug war had subsided a bit, but it’s still there.

With Duterte’s arrest in March for crimes against humanity, ordered by the International Criminal Court (ICC), they feel a sense of optimism that justice will finally be served.

“A thorn was removed from my heart because, somehow, our fight is starting to bear fruit,” Ejorcadas told The STAR yeterday.

Neither of them, however, wants to be photographed out of fear of the police.

Ejorcadas and Pepito live in the slums of R-10 in Navotas, where, two days after Duterte won the elections in 2016, masked men started regularly visiting the area.

Ejorcadas’ brother Jomel was shot twice in the head in August 2016 after being accused of being a drug pusher. Blood was gushing through his teeth, Ejorcadas said, indicating that he might have been hit with the butt of an armalite in the face.