A scene from Operation Tokhang

Sunday, Dec. 11, 2016, 1:30 p.m. or thereabout, at the Palatiw Tricycle Terminal on Market Avenue corner F. Soriano Street, Barangay Palatiw, Pasig City.

Overheard from an incoming tricycle driver: “Pre, may tinokhang na naman, ngayon ngayon lang, dyan sa may (Buddy, Tokhang has got another hit, just this very, very moment, there at) Soriano, Pinagbuhatan.”

Pinagbuhatan is Palatiw’s neighboring barangay, and F. Soriano Street traverses both barangays. The scene of the crime was about 300 meters from the terminal.

And there on the two-lane asphalt street, inside a police cordon of yellow ribbon, was the victim—sprawled on his back, a forearm on the gutter, soaked in his own blood, and lifeless, with more than 10 gunshot wounds on different parts of his body. He was of medium built, about 5’4” in height, between the ages of 35 and 40 years, wearing a black sweater and dark gray short pants.

A sizeable crowd was milling around, and facts and conjectures mingled in the air—the victim was a confirmed notorious drug pusher from Barangay Nagpayong, several kilometers away from the place of incidence; he was riding a motorcycle with a driver-companion on his way to procure shabu from his source, when spotted by the gunmen riding tandem on a motorcycle. A wild chase ensued, culminating in the fatal shooting, though the victim’s companion was able to scamper away unscathed.

As the corpus delicti could not be disturbed unless in the presence of scene of the crime operatives (Soco), it was left unattended for three hours. While the arrival of Soco was being awaited, three skinny and shabbily dressed toddlers—a boy not older than eight years old, a girl around six years old, and another girl about three years old—broke through the police cordon and, hand in hand, slowly walked toward the corpse. When they were accosted by one of the policemen manning the cordon, the boy introduced themselves as the children of the deceased.

Asked about their mother, the boy could not say where she was; when a neighbor told her of their father’s death, she hastily left their home with nary a word to them of where she was going.

How then were they able to reach and locate the place? A tricycle driver, a neighbor, ferried them from their home, dropped them a block away and—after pointing to the crowd and telling them where their father was—left hastily.

So it was that as they looked at their dead father, the boy broke into a sob; the six-year-old girl stared hazily, mouth agape, neither a word nor a tear in her eyes; and the youngest, the three-year-old girl, a smirk on her face, admonishingly calling out to her father in a lilting voice:

“Tay!, Tay! Huwag po kayo humiga diyan. Hala! Magagalit ang Nanay!” (Father! Father! Don’t lie there. You will see, Mother will get angry!)

EXPEDITO J. DELOTINA, Makati City