Silingan, Kin of drug war victims find renewed hope upom Duterte's arrest

Higugma imong silingan. (Love thy neighbor.)

The atmosphere at Silingan Coffee inside Cubao Expo was unusually warm and lively that Tuesday, March 11. Boxes of cakes arrived throughout the day. There was no birthday or graduation to celebrate. Instead, customers and staff marked the arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte.

The café, run by families of drug war victims, had long been a quiet refuge for grief and resistance. That day, they posted a short message: all drinks would be half off until closing. It was a promo, but also a celebration. A small cup raised to the possibility of justice.

The café filled like a warm embrace. Some came to drink. Others came to sit, to listen, and to congratulate the people behind the counter. They were not strangers. They looked like neighbors who had known each other for years.

Nanette Castillo, a barista and mother of a drug war victim joked that she wanted to shut down the street.

“Sa sobrang saya, kung pwede lang isara ang buong kalye, magpa-party ako,” she said. “Kung pwede lang, lahat ng dumadaan, ilibre ng pagkain, alukin ng drinks.”

Two weeks later, on March 24, her words came true. The street outside Silingan was filled with food, music, and families. For a few hours, the grief that built the café made space for something else.

Silingan, which means neighbor in Bisaya, was built not just to serve coffee but to remember and to bring people together. And on March 11, for the families who brewed, served, and grieved behind the counter, it felt for the first time in years that justice might no longer be out of reach.

Nanette never stopped counting ever since that night. During the Duterte administration’s War on Drugs, she lost her eldest son Aldrin in the hands of seven armed men aboard three motorcycles at Herbosa street in Tondo, Manila. There have been 2,815 days and counting in which Aldrin is not home, and will never be.

With roots in Tondo, Aldrin grew up and studied there until the Castillo family moved to their patriarch side in Novaliches, Quezon City due to the foreseen disorder in the area. But Tondo never left Aldrin. It is home to his friends and, most especially, his closest sister Abby who started a family there.

He is a welder by profession, hence Abby called him over to Tondo to fix their malfunctioning aircon unit. He has a penchant for “kuti-kutingting,” as Nanette puts it, because he is fond of repairing things. Unfortunately, he caught a fever that extended him there for three days, his friends said.

Until it was the night of October 2, 2017. Upon feeling better, Aldrin finally descended to the nearby sidewalk outside the house and joined his peers’ quick drinking session. They broke a glass which Aldrin cleaned up. As they slightly moved the table to the side, seven masked men in four motorcycles suddenly arrived.

People ran away, leaving the kneeling Aldrin to the masked men who were interrogating his name. It is uncertain if he ever got the chance to answer.

Five shots. First one in the temple. One in the neck and two at the back.

As Nanette received a call, she hurriedly arrived at the scene with the police surrounding his body. And there she saw Aldrin laying in the pavement, eyes half closed and mouth wide open, signifying his chase for the last breath.

Her eyes cannot even let the tears flow at the sight that night, and through the days succeeding that.

Aldrin’s funeral, supposedly five, lasted for 12 days. Until she pleaded for two more days. And then five. And until her other child asked her, “Ma, ililibing ba si kuya o hindi?” Nanette just cannot let go, until his executioners are behind bars.

Autopsy results revealed that he was gunned with a .45 caliber. However, Aldrin’s case was only investigated once. Some told Nanette that Aldrin could have been falsely pointed out in the drug crackdown.

In one instance, the police went to the funeral and asked them if he had a tattoo on the arm. She said he has none. The possibility of Aldrin’s death being a mistaken identity case enraged her.

After all, it was her beloved eldest son with kindness and innocent mischief, cut short in his 20s and of the new life after a phase of drug use, taken away by the senseless killings.

“So, hindi nila masabi na nagkamali. [..] Nagkamali? Pwede ba ‘yon? ‘Uy, wala siyang tattoo, mali. Buhayin!’ Pwede ba ‘yon? Kaya ganun ‘yong galit ko. Alam mo ‘yong walang explanation. Walang humingi ng sorry sa amin.”

In the relentless pursuit of overdue justice, Aldrin remained in her reminiscences and dreams, resolute and reassuring amid the fight. “Kasi kapag nananaginip ako, nakayakap siya sa ‘kin. Sana kung asan man yung anak ko ngayon, nakikita niyang konti na lang. Baka hindi siya makapanhik. Pero hindi tayo hihinto hanggang hindi sila lahat napaparusahan. Hindi lang si Duterte, lahat ‘yan pati ‘yong Chief of Police niya kasama.”

She questioned the former president as to why only the poor are subjected to such senseless killings, not the actual foreign entities behind the proliferation of drugs.

“May mga times na hinahanap ko pa rin siya pero para kang naalimpungatan. Wala na nga pala siya,” she wiped her tears in mixed bliss and grief as she retells the story for the nth time in a small corner inside Silingan Coffee, on the day mastermind Rodrigo Duterte was finally sent to the Hague.

And as ridicule unleashed on social media, all Nanette asks is respect.

“Sabi ko lang, kung ayaw niyo kami damayan, ‘wag na lang sana. Sana ginalang na lang ‘yong patay.”

The days are counting down to the moment the hand of justice gets a grip on the head of the bloodthirsty leader who instigated such a culture of killings. Duterte is now in the custody of the International Criminal Court (ICC), awaiting for his confirmation of charges September 23rd this year.

From Sinirangan to Silingan

The story of Silingan Coffee begins with two painful moments in our country’s recent past: the destruction left by Typhoon Yolanda in 2013 and the violence brought by the war on drugs that started in 2016.

Before Silingan was even imagined, there was a project called Sinirangan Coffee. Sinirangan means “east” in Waray. It was a small coffee shop founded by the Redemptorists from Baclaran Church to help survivors and teach them how to grow coffee beans and bring them to Manila as supplies in the shop. This way, survivors could earn a living while slowly rebuilding their lives.

The Sinirangan project eventually closed, but it left a clear lesson. A small café could be more than a business. It could be a space for healing, work, and dignity.

A few years later, the country faced a new kind of crisis. In the name of fighting drugs, thousands, mostly from poor communities, were killed in operations. The Church of Baclaran quietly opened its doors to some of the survivors, especially mothers and widows who were suddenly left alone to care for their children.

Brother Jun Santiago, a Redemptorist brother and nightcrawler, had seen the killings first-hand. He would go out late at night to go to the wakes of the victims and see their weeping families. He was not a journalist but a witness of how cruel the effect of the killings can be to the families left behind.

The idea of a livelihood project began again. Brother Jun turned the Sinirangan Coffee shop into Silingan Coffee and began training some of the mothers of drug war victims to become baristas. They were given small allowances, a safe space, and a way to slowly find their strength again. In October 2020, during the pandemic, Silingan Coffee quietly opened its doors.

Silingan is a Visayan word that means “neighbor.” The name was chosen on purpose. Many killings happened because neighbors had been taught to fear or report each other. Silingan wanted to bring back the meaning of being a true neighbor — someone who cares, someone who stands beside you.

People came not just for coffee but for connection. Activists, artists, and human rights workers began to visit. Some held meetings there, others simply sat and listened. The café was filled with warmth, but also with grief. It held both.

Over time, Silingan Coffee became more than a livelihood project. It became a symbol of resistance and memory. The café staff included mothers who had lost their sons. Each cup of coffee they served came with a story, often untold but deeply felt. The place itself became a quiet reminder that justice had not been served, that healing was still ongoing.

It has become one of the few spaces where the fight for justice was not only spoken — it was lived. The work of the café was slow and ordinary, but it stood against the violence that tried to silence and erase.

Article: Mary Rose Maligmat, Maicah Rachel Eugenio, Jane Andes

Graphics: Jan Mike Cabangin