Near-massacre at dawn

Evelyn Saludes has been a single parent to three sons and a daughter since her husband, an Army officer, passed away a few years ago. Industrious and thrifty, she stretches her husband’s pension with the income she gets from a small sari-sari store at the ground floor of her two-story residence in Bgy. Poblacion, Makati City.

Usually up at 4 a.m. to prepare the food of her children before they go to school, the early morning hours of Aug. 27 was no different for the widow. After her chores, she went up to her sons’ quarters to rouse them when she heard a man’s angry voice coming from 17 year old Jouie Marco’s room.

Rushing in, she was horrified to see a stranger stabbing her second son. The boy lay prone in bed, bleeding.

"Papatayin ko kayong lahat, Walang tatakas sa inyo," (I will kill you all. No one will escape.), the stabber kept saying like a mantra.

Those words galvanized Evelyn into action, the instinct of a mother protecting her young. She grabbed the assailant’s knife with both hands. Blood gushed as the blade cut deep into her palms but she held on. Her finger was almost severed. As she tried to get the attacker off her son, she screamed for help.

Joseph Vincent, 18, her eldest son and her third child John Patrick, 15, who were in the next room, rushed in. Both were met with the attacker’s knife. The brothers were stabbed repeatedly as they entered the room.

The commotion woke up 14-year old Nilka, the youngest and only daughter in the brood. She lay still at the ground floor bedroom listening to the shouts. She heard a stranger’s voice saying over and over, "Papatayin ko kayong lahat."

She stealthily ran out of the house, to her uncle’s home next-door. She called 117.

Bernard de los Santos, Code 0042 of 117 Call Center in Fairview, Quezon City, got the call that morning. "117. What is your emergency?", he answered with the prescribed response.

Bernard remembers hearing a trembling, almost inaudible voice. "Padala kayo ng pulis, maawa kayo. May mama may kutsilyo, (Please send the police. Have mercy. There is a man with a knife)" a shaken Nilka reported.

"Please give us your name and address," Bernard replied.

Nilka was able to get the information in before the line was cut. Bernard was working on a three-way call conference with the Makati police precinct nearest the Saludes residence when the line went dead.

"It could be a crank call," he thought. After all, the caller hung up. But he had a name and address. Not leaving anything to chance, Bernard called Precinct 9 and gave details of the call.

SPO2 Rolly Bagon in Makati City’s Precinct 9 radioed police Inspector Rosauro Baticlar and Capt. Ruvinal Elcaner about the 117 call. Both were on routine patrol in the area. As the their car turned to Fermina St., they found a small crowd led by Nilka’s uncle Renato Saludes ready to enter the beseiged Saludes’ house. The police response time was so quick that they arrived at the site almost as soon as Nilka put down the phone and ran back to her family with her uncle.

The policemen charged into the now-bloodied bedroom and caught Geoffrey Abarico still on a rampage. While his other victims lay bleeding, he scuffled with John Patrick. Abarico was overpowered and subdued. Evelyn and her sons were saved.

Meanwhile, 117 operator Bernard was trying to reach Nilka. His anxiety heightened with every empty ringing of the phone. No one was picking up his call. After five minutes, he dialed Precinct 9 again. It was standard operating procedure for operators to monitor developments of reports they relay to the responding agency.

Bernard felt a rock was lifted from his chest when police officer Bagon confirmed of the successful police action at Fermina Street — that his decision to call Precinct 9 saved four lives.

Soft-spoken, shy Nilka was a hero. Protected and pampered for years as the only girl and the youngest sibling, she showed maturity and spunk beyond her tender years to save her family during their darkest hour.

Her family calls Nilka their hero but to Nilka, 117 is her hero. "Mabuti na lang may 117 (It is good that we have 117)," she said.