It wasn’t his face that gave them away.

His face was swollen, bloodied, and barely recognizable. His white sando and shorts were soaked with blood. He looked nothing like the man who had eaten lunch in their home just hours earlier.

It was the belt.

Looped through the waistband of his shorts, it was the same one he always wore. The same one his nephew once tried to take.

“Saka mo na arbor-in,” he had said. “Mahuhulog ‘yung shorts ko.”

On December 17, 2016, Hazel came home to a commotion outside their house in East Bagong Barrio, Caloocan. At first, she thought it was someone else—another neighbor, another victim. But when her son looked closer at the man being carried out and said, “Mama, si Tito ‘yun,” everything stopped.

“Paanong si Tito mo? Paano siya mapupunta roon?” Hazel asked.

Her son pointed to the belt. “Kasi ‘yung sinturon, ina-arbor ko sa kanya. Hindi niya binibigay sa akin.”

That was how they identified “Onok”. Not by his face, not by a tag, but by something as ordinary and familiar as a belt.

Wrong door, wrong time

Onok was 33 years old. He didn’t have a steady job. Hazel says he often relied on her, but as her brother, that meant something in their family. That day, he had simply dropped by. He was waiting for his partner and child. He wasn’t supposed to stay long.

Down the street, police were preparing to raid a house. Rumors spread fast in their neighborhood. Someone was being targeted, possibly for drugs. People started running. Onok got caught in the current.

He wasn’t familiar with the layout of the area. Instead of going towards Hazel’s house, he ran in the opposite direction, into the very house the police were about to raid.

Inside, people scattered. Some escaped through the roof. Others hid in the ceiling. Onok stayed in a room, confused and unsure where to go. Hazel said someone inside the house threw a bottle towards the police. They took it as a threat.

When the officers forced their way in, they didn’t ask questions. Hazel says they shot her brother in the legs, beat him, and pushed him down a spiral staircase. After he fell, they shot him in the head.

A man hiding in the CR saw what happened. He was left alone. Hazel believes the police needed someone to blame. Her brother—unknown, unarmed, and not from the area—was the easiest target.

“Parang sa kapatid ko nila ibinuhos,” Hazel said. “Patay na nga, binaril pa, binugbog, hinulog pa sa hagdan. Pagdampot nila, binaril ulit sa sentido.”

Hazel wasn’t there when it happened. By the time she got home, the police were gone. Her son was the first to recognize the belt. The morgue confirmed it.

“Kaya pala ayaw ibigay ni Tito ‘yung sinturon,” her son told her. “Kasi ‘yun pala ‘yung magiging sign na makikilala siya.”

Another brother, another death

One month later, on January 17, 2017, Hazel lost another brother.

“Loloy” was 27. He had a regular job and no record with the barangay. On weekends, he worked as a dance instructor. He lived with their elderly parents and helped provide for them.

That night, he and his wife were visiting her father. After dinner, his wife stepped out to buy cigarettes.

That was when the motorcycles arrived.

Hazel said there were eight or more—each with riders, all masked and carrying guns. They forced their way into the house. The first shot was fired at his father-in-law.

Loloy hid in the CR with the children. They locked the door. When the gunmen broke it open, they let the children out. Loloy could have gone with them. But then one of the men saw the tattoo on his arm.

“May tattoo. Adik ‘yan.”

He tried to explain that he didn’t know anything, that he was only visiting his in-laws’ house. But the men didn’t listen.

It didn’t matter what the tattoo was or what it meant. It didn’t matter that he had just finished eating, or that he had no drugs, no gun, no past. All they needed was a mark. They dragged him back inside. 

They beat him. Then they shot him in the back.

“Wala siya sa drug watchlist,” Hazel said. “Kahit itanong mo sa barangay, wala siyang record.”

But the tattoo was enough.

What they took

Hazel lost two brothers in just a month. There were no warrants. No charges. No investigations. Her mother received financial support through other channels: P10,000 from a human rights organization.

There were seven siblings in the family. Now, only four remain.

Of the two who died, it was Loloy’s death that hit their parents harder. “Parang malaking dagok sa magulang ko na yung taong inaasahan nila na tutulong sa kanila dahil nga matatanda na sila, siya na lang yung nagtatrabaho para sa kanila, nawala pa.”

Even today, the fear hasn’t left. Her parents worry that the remaining brothers could be next. The killings may have slowed, but the silence that followed has not.

What hurts even more, Hazel said, is how people talk.

“Adik ‘yan kaya pinatay.”
“Kaya ‘yan pinatay kasi adik ‘yan.”
“Nanlaban.”

She hears it all the time. “Kaya siguro gano’n sila magsalita,” Hazel said, “pero ‘pag sila ang naka-experience, baka doble pa ang maramdaman nila.”

She still remembers who her brothers were. And she knows what they were not.

The sign that stayed

When Hazel heard about Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest, she didn’t feel joy.

“Hindi ako natutuwa,” she said. “Ang sarap sakalin. Pero mababang tao lang ako. Wala akong magawa.”

She wants accountability—not just for Duterte, but for every person involved in the killings: the ones who gave the orders, the ones who pulled the trigger, and those who let it happen.

For Hazel, justice doesn’t mean revenge. “Pwede mo naman silang ikulong, ‘di ba? Kung gusto mo, panghabangbuhay pa. Pero hindi mo kailangang patayin.”

Hazel now works at the Silingan Justice Van, a mobile coffee cart run by families of drug war victims. She prepares drinks behind the counter, trying to move forward like anyone else.

She knows her story is just one of thousands like it — the kind of killings now being investigated by international courts. She doesn’t expect anything to change soon. But she keeps telling it.

There was the belt that helped identify her brother.

And the tattoo that marked another for death.

These were the signs that stayed. The only things that proved they were here.

(Some names in this story have been changed at the request of the subject. All aliases were used with her permission to protect her and her family’s privacy.)