The price of a boy’s life

“It’s as if they killed my son all over again.”

Those were the haunting words of the mother of 17-year-old Jerhode “Jemboy” Baltazar, after the Navotas City policemen who gunned down her son in a mistaken identity case last year were meted out light sentences for their crime.

Rodaliza Baltazar’s lament stood as a sharp contrast to the cold, emotionless decision of the Navotas judge who ruled last week that Police Staff Sgt. Gerry Maliban, whose gunshot snuffed out the teen’s life, “did not commit murder,” as he “cannot be said to have employed means, methods, or forms in the execution of the crime.”

“There is no doubt Maliban was performing his duty during that fatal incident,” Judge Pedro Dabu Jr. wrote, “[because] the urge to shoot the victim materialized only when the victim attempted to escape and Maliban aimed his shot at him instantly.”

Blamed for bad judgment

On the afternoon of Aug. 2, 2023, Baltazar was cleaning his boat in Barangay North Bay Boulevard South Kaunlaran with a friend, when the armed law enforcers, pursuing a suspect, rushed in, scaring him so that he jumped into the river as they fired at him. (The Baltazars dispute this, arguing that the boy only fell after he was shot.)

The young fisherman had been dead for hours by the time his body was fished out of the river. By Dabu’s logic, however, Baltazar shouldn’t have jumped in the first place, or the policemen wouldn’t have peppered him with gunfire. Instead, if we follow the judge’s argument, he should have withstood the guns aimed at him with all the maturity and composure of a teenager.

And so, the dead victim was essentially blamed for bad judgment while his killer was excused for a worse one—except the former paid with his life and the latter would pay with a mere slap on his wrist.

Maliban was found guilty of homicide, sentenced to a prison term of four to six years, and ordered to pay P50,000 in damages to Baltazar’s next of kin. Four others—Executive Master Sgt. Roberto Balais Jr., Police Staff Sgt. Nikko Pines Corollo Esquilon, Police Cpl. Edmard Jake Blanco, and Patrolman Benedict Mangada—were convicted of illegal firearm discharge and given four months in prison.

Because their time in detention exceeded the sentence, the court ordered their release, along with the sixth officer, Police Staff Sgt. Antonio Bugayong, who was acquitted on account of “doubt” as to whether he had fired his gun.

Rules of engagement

By the court’s reckoning, Baltazar’s death was an unfortunate accident in the policemen’s legitimate exercise of duty, an outcome they hadn’t wanted nor intended.

Never mind that the police tried to cover it up by allegedly coercing the boy’s friend to lie and say the victim was carrying illegal drugs, as Sonny Boy Augustilo told a Senate inquiry. Never mind that the accused was clothed in authority, and his victim a young man who once dreamed, according to one newspaper report, of being someone like his killer: a policeman.

The court did acknowledge that Maliban had not followed the rules of engagement by shooting at an unarmed person: “In fine, had Maliban exercised self-restraint, the death of an innocent boy could have been avoided.”

For all that, the judge deemed it best to punish Baltazar’s killer with a brief time in prison and a paltry fine. “Is that the only value of my son’s life?” Baltazar’s mother wailed on the day of the decision.

See Also

What’s at stake

What is the price for taking a boy’s life? It seems, not much at all.

Three boys murdered

Baltazar is not the first, nor will he be the last victim of police killings, as he follows the tragic fate of Kian delos Santos, Carl Arnaiz, and Reynaldo de Guzman, three boys murdered during the drug war.

If anything, Baltazar’s case shows “how the Philippine justice system continues to fail the victims of police killings and brutality in the country in pursuing full accountability of perpetrators,” the rights group Karapatan said.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has pledged to exhaust legal remedies, including elevating the case to the Court of Appeals, because “justice must be served,” DOJ Assistant Secretary Jose Dominic Clavano said.

Culture of impunity

Police Col. Jean Fajardo, the Philippine National Police spokesperson, said officers were reminded “to adhere to their existing police operational procedures.” But her statement is empty because it reduces Baltazar to a victim of human error, when the reality is he is the victim of our culture of impunity. Sadly, this cannot be fixed by protocols to keep trigger-happy police in line nor by the mere dismissal of the six involved in Baltazar’s death.

The Navotas court’s decision demonstrates how the justice system can be so generous to armed men in uniform but astonishingly cruel to the innocent children they are meant to “serve and protect.” For now, the best recourse for the Baltazars and state prosecutors is to lodge the strongest possible appeal in the higher courts to rectify this appalling travesty of justice.