#kianismyson

When I heard of his death and saw the grainy, jerky footage of him being “escorted” by two older men in civilian wear, the images ending with his body crouched in a trash-filled street corner — shot dead — my mother’s heart clenched in sorrow.

I did not know Kian Loyd delos Santos while he lived. And what I know of him now as the most prominent (so far) victim of President Duterte’s anti-drug campaign is but a pastiche of images, stories told by his family and friends, and allegations made by police and government officials and trolls engaged in “fake news.”

But I felt I knew him well. I knew him because I myself have raised two children who grew up to be teenagers, and through the turbulent years of their adolescence, watched and waited and finally heaved a sigh of relief when they made their way through the labyrinth of confusion and emerged unscathed as responsible adults. I know Kian — and follow his story with concern — because I have a grandson who will grow up in the same country, walk the same troubled streets, and, who knows, face the same questions and challenges that every young Filipino is now heir to.

In a strange way, I feel like I have lost a son, too.

It’s difficult to fathom why Kian, who is not the first nor will be the last youthful victim of “Oplan Tokhang,” should trigger such galvanizing grief and anger from a populace that had seen thousands die at the hands of law enforcers and “unknown” assassins. One reason I can think of is that, while the hundreds of previous fatalities, including children younger than him, died in the darkness, huddled in dingy corners or sprawled on sidewalks, Kian’s killing was well-documented. There is the CCTV footage, for one, and interviews with his furious parents, especially his OFW mother who struggled through her tears and sobs to articulate her helpless sorrow.

While most of the “tokhang” fatalities were but statistics, Kian sprang onto the popular imagination as a fully-formed, fully-realized human being.

Certainly, he was no angel. No teenager ever is. But his family and neighbors, and even his teachers talking through Education Secretary Leonor Briones say he was a “good boy.” He certainly seems like one, helping his father manage their little sari-sari store, and making good enough grades and a blameless record to merit a “voucher” scholarship that enabled him to study in a private school. Briones herself told radio interviewers that students on “vouchers” had to maintain their grades and incur no disciplinary problems to stay in school.

Heartbreaking indeed is the tale told by witnesses that Kian begged the police who had picked him up and started beating him to “please stop because I have a test tomorrow.” No addict would be so concerned about a school test the next morning, right?

Some snarky commentator sought to debunk Kian’s “saintly” image by asking what he was doing out on the street of his urban poor community at such a late hour. That clued me in to the certainty that the writer had never parented a teenager. Among the long list of possible teen infractions, staying out late occurs so often as to seem to be routine. Besides, Kian had a pretty good excuse: He was helping close the family store when the policemen encountered him.

Is Kian’s death the proverbial “tipping point” for the Duterte administration, or at least for its bloody war on drugs? Signs indicate that the consequences of this one boy’s passing have gone far beyond the temporary flash of anger or alarm that greeted each death as tokhang became the “new normal.”

No one knows whether this is but a flash of public temper or the start of a slow burn that will lead to far-reaching reforms, if not regime change. But for this mother and grandmother, it is a story that tugs at the heart, that raises the specter of what-might-have been, and that weighs heavily on the maternal soul.

I didn’t join #iamkian. But let me propose a hashtag for parents of my generation: #kianismyson. And may he be the last one.