Calls for justice, intervention at funeral for drug war’s youngest known victim

A priest blesses the remains of three-year-old Myca Ulpina before she is laid to rest at a cemetery in Rizal on Tuesday, July 9, 2019. Police said she was used as a human shield by her father, a suspected drug dealer who resisted arrest and opened fire during a buy-bust operation. The girl's mother has rejected the police's claim. Reuters/Eloisa Lopez

RODRIGUEZ, Rizal — At the pauper's funeral for 3-year-old Myca Ulpina, the youngest known victim of a war on drugs that has become so deadly and murky it is almost impossible to track how many have been killed, scores of people joined the three-kilometer procession behind the hearse.

On the back of the hearse was a picture of the child wearing a shirt with the word "Pulis."

"I can't count how many masses I've held for victims of the war on drugs, but one thing I've discovered is none of them fought back," priest Noel Gatchalian said at the funeral mass on Tuesday, his eyes welling with tears.

"Sorry Myca, for I wasn't able to protect you ... Sorry that you were born at a time when the poor are targeted and killings are rampant. Sorry if they're saying you're collateral damage."

The service was held outside a relative's home under a small tarpaulin roof propped up by bamboo poles. About 60 people crammed into the space, mostly standing, among them activists, family and friends wearing T-shirts that said "Justice for Myca," and "stop the attacks against the poor."

In a yard outside strewn with trash, old clothes and broken furniture, a group of police carrying assault rifles stood guard.

One by one, Myca's mother and siblings splashed holy water over the white coffin barely a meter long. On the dirt floor beneath it lay a pair of tiny pink slippers.

The priest and funeral workers carried the small casket up some steps and pushed it into a prepared space atop a concrete structure of hundreds of graves built in columns five-high.

It was the police that had called the three-year-old "collateral damage," an unintended death among some 6,600 people whom police say they have killed in shootouts during President Rodrigo Duterte's three-year crackdown.

Activists say tens of thousands are being killed as police terrorize poor communities, using cursory drug "watch lists" to identify suspected users or dealers, and executing many of them under the guise of sting operations.

Police and the government reject that as lies and say those killed were armed and resisted arrest, including the toddler's father, Renato, whom they said used his daughter as a human shield in a June 29 incident in Rizal province.

A priest helps place the small coffin of 3-year-old Myca Ulpina in its final resting place at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Rodriguez, Rizal on Tuesday, July 9, 2019. Dano Tingcungco

'Untruthful narratives'

Ulpina's killing comes as the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council prepares to vote this week on a resolution that calls for a UN investigation into the drugs war, heeding pleas from activists and lawyers for the international community to intervene to stop the bloodshed.

The Duterte administration has dismissed the resolution as interference and cited the President's approval rating, which hit a record high last month, as evidence of resounding public backing for his anti-drugs campaign.

Foreign governments are being "misled by false news and untruthful narratives," according to Duterte's spokesman Salvador Panelo, while the Dangerous Drugs Board, the country's narcotics control body, on Tuesday said facts were being distorted "to present a morbid picture of the anti-drug campaign."

The child's death had generated little media attention until Friday, when Senator Ronald Dela Rosa, former top commander of Duterte's drug war, described the child's death as collateral damage, and said "shit happens." He has since apologized.

Accounts of what happened vary. Police said operatives had tried to buy drugs from Ulpina's father, who pulled a gun on them and killed one of their officers while using the child as shield.

Ulpina's mother, who has asked not to be identified by name, said police burst into her home without a warrant as her family slept. Her daughter was killed by a stray bullet and wasn't used as a shield, she said.

Wearing dark sunglasses, Ulpina's mother fought to contain her anger as a woman police officer approached, shook her hand and offered condolences.

"My daughter is not collateral damage," she said, as she left the cemetery.

WATCH: 3-year-old Myca Ulpina laid to rest

Flavie Villanueva, a former drug user-turned-priest who delivered the mass, said he welcomed calls for a UN investigation, because Duterte and the police were acting "like Gods."

"It's a new normal. That's why 'shit happens'" he said, referring to Dela Rosa's remarks. "My question is, when is enough, enough?" — Reuters