Tondo, Manila: A seven-months pregnant mother of two has told how a masked assassin accompanied by police shot dead her husband they mistook for a pusher in president Rodrigo Duterte's deadly anti-drugs crackdown across the Philippines.
Ruth Jane Sombrio told Fairfax Media that police burst into a crudely built shack in this drug-ravaged slum as she was in bed with her husband Rogie Sebastian and their children.
More News Videos
The faces behind Duterte's deadly drug war
Ruth-Jane Sombrio says police and an assassin killed her husband in Manila last week; one of almost 4,000 victims under Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs.
"They killed my husband like a pig," she said while sobbing uncontrollably.
"I know he didn't do anything. They are animals."
![Seven-month pregnant Ruth-Jane Sombrio, widow of Rogie Sebastian, with their daughter Rogielyn (left) and son Rogie.](/web/20160929113438im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/o/8/f/w/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gro8df.png/1474889847667.jpg)
Here in Tondo, home to more than 700,000 of Manila's poorest people, armed police on motor bikes roam narrow alleyways hunting targets, urged on by Mr Duterte with promises of medals, cash and protection.
"If you follow my order you won't have any problem," the 71-year-old former provincial mayor told police and soldiers in one of his latest speeches. "I'll take care of you. I will not allow any soldier or policeman to get jailed because of my order as our country is facing a big problem - illegal drugs."
Now destitute without enough money for a funeral, 41-year-old Ms Sombrio said her neighbours have advised her it would be too dangerous to file an official complaint about the killing of her husband. She said that Mr Sebastian was a pedi-cab rider who had been an occasional drug user but had quit when Mr Duterte implemented his crackdown after being swept into office at elections in May.
But Ms Sombrio, who is seven-months pregnant, told Fairfax Media she wants to speak out.
![The one-room home where Rogie Sebastian was shot dead in Tondo District during a police drug operation.](/web/20160929113438im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/o/8/f/p/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gro8df.png/1474889847667.jpg)
"I am furious and not afraid because what they have done is wrong," she said.
Mr Sebastian, 30, had been working and took an afternoon nap as his wife and their one-year-old daughter Rogielyn and two year-old son Rogie were watching television.
![A neighbour comforts Ruth-Jane Sombrio at the funeral home where her husband is being held in Binondo District, Manila.](/web/20160929113438im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/o/8/f/x/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gro8df.png/1474889847667.jpg)
Ms Sombrio said that two police wearing plain clothes burst into the room.
She screamed at them to leave, telling them they needed a warrant and were at the wrong house.
"We just want to talk with Rogie," one of the policemen told her before she was pushed to the doorway, clutching her daughter and pulling her son.
Ms Sombrio said she was standing at the doorway when she heard a gunshot and her husband fell to the floor.
![A relative of Rogie Sebastian holds his ID card.](/web/20160929113438im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/o/8/f/y/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gro8df.png/1474889847667.jpg)
She said three more shots rang out after a masked man wearing gloves went inside.
She said she saw the assassin give the thumbs up and down sign to other police as he emerged from the shack, before she fainted in shock.
![The police report for the shooting incident of Rogie Sebastian.](/web/20160929113438im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/o/8/f/q/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gro8df.png/1474889847667.jpg)
When she became conscious she confronted a policeman.
"Why did you kill my husband you son of a bitch," she screamed. "How can I feed my children now."
Ms Sombrio and several of her neighbours told Fairfax Media that police mistook Mr Sebastian for the owner of the shack who sold shabu, the highly addictive poor quality form of crystal methamphetamine.
A sign inside the building reads that drugs would not be sold to addicts, only users.
The owner, who also lived there, has not been seen since the shooting.
The family had only been renting a room in the shack for three months.
Ms Sombrio said addicts often came to the house to buy shabu but that her husband had nothing to do with the trade.
She said a Tondo district official had suggested that her husband surrender to police and admit he was a user under a nationwide program demanded by Mr Duterte.
"But Rogie said 'I am not a killer. I'm not a drugs lord' and refused," she said.
Police claimed in an official report into the shooting that Mr Sebastian was a "notorious" drugs pusher on Tondo's San Miguel Road who was shot dead in the shack during a buy-bust sting operation with an uncover policeman called Carlos at 4.30pm on September 19.
Mr Sebastian had pulled out a .38 calibre revolver after he became suspicious of Carlos, the report said, and was then shot dead.
A revolver, used ammunition, 200 pesos ($5.50) of marked money and a small amount of shabu were found in his possession, the police report said.
But multiple witnesses who were in the alleyway that afternoon told Fairfax Media that about 10 policemen had surrounded the shack before two plain clothes men and the masked gunman went inside before a total of four gun shots rang out.
Ms Sombrio said Rogie never owned a gun or the drugs and the money wasn't his.
She said a homicide squad officer shook his head while holding a list of names of people on a list of drugs suspects, indicating he was not on it.
More than 3500 Filipinos have been killed in the crackdown since July 1, half of them in police killings and the rest by unidentified assailants.
Mr Duterte, who is known as The Punisher, claimed last weekend that his critics have failed to understand that his actual directive is for police to shoot criminals only if they resist arrest or police believe their lives are in danger.
But human rights activists say police have been given the green light to kill drugs suspects without fear of prosecution.
![Men drink beer and read the newspapers in one of the alleys of Tondo district in Manila, Philippines. General crime rates have dropped in some barangay's in Tondo since Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs campaign started.](http://web.archive.org./web/20160929113438im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/o/8/g/2/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1474834426272.png)
Men drink beer and read the newspapers in one of the alleys of Tondo district in Manila, Philippines. General crime rates have dropped in some barangays in Tondo since Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs campaign started. Photo: Kate Geraghty
Addicts leaving Manila
In Tondo, where people live in shacks built from scavenged timber, plastic and iron and there is no running water, drug use has fallen as much as 90 per cent and 20 per cent of users and addicts have left for the provinces, fearing for their lives under the crackdown, district chiefs say.
"I support the president's campaign. Some pushers still come in here but drug use and crime, which is almost all drug related, is well down," said Bong Parce, the 46-year-old chief of one district with 65,000 residents.
"I only ask the president, 'What is next?' There must be follow-ups like programs to provide work for people, to give them some hope for their future," he said.
Police colonel Amante Daro told Fairfax Media that for the first time in memory crime has dropped to almost nothing in poor districts of the sprawling capital.
"You can see people feel safer. People can talk on their mobile telephones without fear of them being snatched. We even see people playing Pokemon Go. Amazing," he said.
![A man sleeps on a makeshift bed in one of the alleys in Tondo district in Manila, Philippines.](http://web.archive.org./web/20160929113438im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/o/8/g/1/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1474834424750.png)
A man sleeps on a makeshift bed in one of the alleys in Tondo district in Manila, Philippines. Photo: Kate Geraghty
You can still see emaciated addicts curled up in Tondo's alleyways which have been notorious for crime and drugs over decades.
Most residents seem to support the crackdown although they spoke to Fairfax Media in the presence of district officials.
"I think the president is doing a good job but the killings are going too far," said Norma Roxas, a 49-year-old store owner near the shack that Mr Sebastian rented with a government subsidy.
![Nice Poro, a former shabu user, with his wife and children in his home in the Tondo district of Manila.](http://web.archive.org./web/20160929113438im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/o/8/g/0/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1474834423256.png)
Nice Poro, a former shabu user, with his wife and children in his home in the Tondo district of Manila. Photo: Kate Geraghty
Nice Poro, a 57-year-old fisherman and father of 10, surrendered to police and admitted he was a user of shabu in August.
"For me it has finished my drug use. At the start I was afraid of being killed. But it is good for me," he said. "I don't want my children to copy what I was doing. I was not a role model for them. I want them to finish their studies and be something in life."
Ms Sombrio said without any money to care for her soon-to-be-born and two other children she will be forced to return to her family's coastal village in Mindanao, in the country's troubled south.
She stays away from the shack, fearing police will come back looking for the owner, and sleeps with her children under an awning near a school.
"Why did they kill my husband? He has no sins. He was not a pusher, not even a user anymore … he has children. Instead of buying drugs he was buying milk for his children," Ms Sombrio said at a funeral home that is refusing to release his body for burial until she pays the equivalent of $350, money she doesn't have.
"I sometimes quarrelled with Rogie but he never laid a hand on me and I just pray that he goes to heaven because he was a good man and that is where he belongs," she said.