When the police arrived at the tangle of small shacks that compose Kimberly Jugadora’s neighborhood in Manila, they were all wearing masks. Her father and brother were working on a motorcycle in the small street in front of their home when the heavily armed men ordered them to lay face down. Her mother went outside to see what was happening. Soon the police placed both her mother and father on the backs of motorcycles and drove off. Jugadora ran after them, but she wasn’t able to keep up. She could only watch in horror as they disappeared into the chaos of the Philippine capital.

Over the next several hours, Jugadora repeatedly called her mother’s cell phone with no result. She went to several police stations, but everyone she talked with claimed they knew nothing. Finally, she got word that her mother’s body had been spotted under a nearby bridge and her father’s body had been dumped in the cemetery. Before she could get there herself, the bodies had been transported to a local funeral home. Jugadora and her siblings spent several days coming up with the money to retrieve the bodies so they could properly mourn and bury their parents.

Jugadora today keeps a photo of her parents—Rogelio Buena and Jenny Royo—on a small altar in their simple home. Her 6-year-old daughter, Clarisa, will go to the altar when she misses her grandparents and place her fingertips on their photo. When she comes home from school, Clarisa will talk to the photo, telling her grandparents about her day, asking them about theirs. Jugadora says Clarisa worries about whether they have enough food in heaven.

“I assure her that God is taking good care of them. She asks me when they’re coming back. I tell her they aren’t, but that we will one day go to be with them. If I didn’t believe that, I would go crazy,” she said.


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This episode originally appeared in the November/December 2019 issue of response magazine.

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