NAT'L DAY OF REMEMBRANCE SOUGHT TO COMMEMORATE KIAN AND EJK VICTIMS

In commemoration of Kian delos Santos, the Caloocan youth who was murdered in a controversial anti-drug operation a year ago today, Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros filed a resolution seeking to declare the 16th of August as a "National Day of Remembrance" for all the victims of extrajudicial killings (EJKs) under the Duterte government's bloody war on drugs.

Hontiveros said that delos Santos' death sparked national and international outrage, and underscored the human rights atrocities committed in the name of the administration's bloody War on Drugs, even to innocent youth and children.

She said that by remembering all those who have been felled by the government's drug war, the public states its clear rejection of the culture of killing and impunity, and the brazen disregard for due process and human rights in the country.

"To remember is a duty, an act of defiance"

"We have the duty to remember. Amid the deluge of fake news and the systemic attempt at data obfuscation and revisionism to cover up the thousands who have died under President Duterte's brutal drug war, we must not allow Kian and all the EJK victims to be rendered nameless, invisible and forgotten," Hontiveros said.

"The act of remembering is an act of defiance against the killings. To forget is to give consent," Hontiveros stressed.

Proposed Senate Resolution No. 848, which was filed on Wednesday, seeks to express the sense of the Senate to declare the 16th of August as a National Day of Remembrance to commemorate the felled innocents in the War on Drugs.

Hontiveros' office said that as part of the many efforts to commemorate the first death anniversary of delos Santos and all EJK victims, a memorial marker will be unveiled tomorrow afternoon at the San Roque Cathedral compound in Caloocan. The unveiling of the marker will be led by Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, Hontiveros and friends and relatives of delos Santos. A memorial mass will follow shortly after.