A month has passed since September 21, when Eric Saber — a construction worker who happened to be at Recto Avenue — was caught in the middle of a violent police dispersal of young protesters, the so-called “young stunnas” in Gen Z and street parlance. He was merely watching the commotion. Then he took a bullet in the neck, fired, witnesses said, by armed men in civilian clothes alongside the police.
Concerned bystanders and protesters rushed Eric to the Jose R. Reyes Memorial Medical Center (JRRMMC), with some police officers even helping bring him to the said facility. Less than two days later, he was dead.
There has been no police investigation that we know of. The hospital itself denied he was ever brought there. When we in Altermidya wrote to JRRMMC on September 25 (two days after Eric’s death) the hospital’s chief, Dr. Wenceslao Llauderes, curtly replied: “(W)e are unable to find a patient that matches the details you shared.” The letter was dated October 3, but only sent on October 6.
The Manila Police District, meanwhile, has stonewalled every inquiry. According to human rights lawyer Maria Sol Taule, who has tirelessly assisted the arrested protesters, MPD refused to release any information about Eric’s death, or to even acknowledge that it investigated the case. Yet Eric’s relatives provided her with the original death certificate from JRRMMC itself, disproving the hospital’s denial.
That certificate listed “acute coronary syndrome, non-ST elevation myocardial infarction” as the immediate cause of death, supposedly following a six-hour interval from onset to death. It also cited a “spinal cord injury secondary to comminuted fracture, posterior left C6.” Clearly, said Taule, that fracture was the result of the gunshot wound to Eric’s neck.
An independent forensic doctor (whom we shall not name for now) reviewed Eric’s body and issued another death certificate, this time explicitly stating that he died from a gunshot wound to the neck.
Altermidya has since sent the original document to Dr. Llauderes for comment. Two weeks later, there is still no reply.
The Marcos Jr. administration’s line remains unchanged. The PNP, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla, and Manila Mayor Isko Moreno Domagoso all parrot the same narrative: that the kids were violent, that they were not real protesters, and were possibly paid or goaded by unseen hands to provoke the police. They cast doubt on whether Eric was killed by police bullets.
But videos and eyewitness accounts tell a different story. Multiple citizen videos show at least two men in civilian clothes, handguns drawn, firing across Recto from in front of Hotel SOGO — just meters away from SWAT members in full battle gear. Eric falls at that same moment, in a spot exactly across the street, his blood spurting from his neck. The two gunmen then retreat into the hotel as enraged protesters hurl stones at them. Their faces are even visible on the footage. Meanwhile, the red paint that Domagoso had painted over the island has the bullet marks to match the footage.
So why the secrecy? Why the lies?
The administration’s behavior since September 21 offers a clue: fear. Fear of the anger that corruption and impunity are now fueling. In the weeks since, police have quietly harassed and threatened supposed “young stunna” protest leaders.
On October 21, after another huge protest by peasant groups in Mendiola, a protester known as “Decay” was arrested for allegedly painting slogans on Recto’s walls. On October 22, police visited the home of Joaquin Buenaflor, chairperson of the UP Diliman University Student Council, to hand him a subpoena over the student protests. Two other youth leaders — PUP student council president Tiffany Brillante and The Catalyst associate editor Jacob Baluyot — received similar subpoenas in recent weeks.
These supposed “investigations” all trace back to September 21 — except, tellingly, the killing of Eric Saber.
At the farmers’ protest yesterday in Liwasang Bonifacio and Mendiola, many of the young stunnas carried placards with Eric’s name, demanding justice and condemning police brutality. Some bore the One Piece flag; others marched under new formations like Red Star Collective and Vandals United, who now embrace the charge that they “vandalized” Recto’s walls with slogans for justice.
It is they — the same youth dismissed as unruly and paid — who keep insisting that the Marcos Jr. administration answer for Eric Saber’s death. And until it does, his name will continue to appear on the streets, on the walls, and in the chants of those who refuse to forget.
