25/02/2025
SALUTE IMMIPUGO
“MAMA hindi muna ako mag-aasawa. Tapusin ko muna bahay natin.” This was the promise that millennial Cordilleran Scout Ranger Jethro Estacio ,24,made to his mama before he was plunged as a front liner together with other young Scout Rangers in the Marawi siege against ISIS-Maute terrorists for five months this year. His family hails from Ifugao.
A week before President Duterte’s declaration of Marawi liberation,Jethro and five other millennial Scout Rangers were tasked to go ahead as frontline assault advance
party for top military officials who are supposed to facilitate the alleged surrender of terrorists in an open mosque in a neighborhood in Marawi. Their team of six reached the open-structure mosque but were greeted with silence and no surrenderees in sight.
Then ten meters away up
front, hidden in the upper rooms of houses that ringed the open mosque were people shouting Allahu Akhbar! Jethro , as the trusted gunner of the team spotted them and fired.Just as he warned his team of terrorists up front, a rain of grenades and tear gas showered them in the open mosque pavement where there are no structures to take cover from the surprise trap attack. “Advance party dapat sila para sa mag-susurender ,wala silang kaalam alam, trap pala,” Jethro’s older brother Romnick from the Philippine Marines said. Little did the team of six millennial Scout Rangers know that they stumbled upon the last ISIS-Maute stronghold in Marawi.
As the gunfire raged
between the terrorists and the six Scout Rangers who were exposed on the mosque’s open pavement , Jethro, who is known by his team to be brave, a quick thinker, dependable ,
advances in the frontlines and never left his team behind, looked at his team leader one last time and succumbed to a head shot as he fought the terrorists upfront. “Umiyak yung ka batch niya, wala na si Jethro,”Jethro’s kuya Romnick shared. His bestfriend tried to pull his body out but he was heavy and saddled with the weight of bullets and ammo
strapped on his vest being the gunner of the team.”Kaya yung baril na lang ni Jethro ang kinuha ng kasama niya,” his brother said. His body was then left behind in the mosque as his team left to re-plan. Retrieved after 8 days because troops have to break down the last stand of terrorists hiding in houses infront of the open mosque,his body was found by his brother already mutilated and beyond recognition. “Kinuha nila ang kanyang atay, sinunug yung ibang parte tsaka binalik sa loob. Hiniwa ang likod niya,
sinunug yung katawan,” Jethro’s older brother said. “Kahit patay na siya from his head shot, pinaputukan pa ulo at katawan niya ng 200 rounds na bala ,”he added, which made his brother’s head look like an opened egg, his brother said.
He further explained that since the terrorists were cornered by troops at that time, they could have run out of food supplies. He has a strong suspicion that even part of his brother’s liver was eaten by the terrorists. “Ganun po talaga ginagawa nila,”
he lamented, drawing from experience as a Marine soldier in Mindanao.
by: acb Ka Musang
[We are running a series of stories about our fallen Cordilleran heroes in Marawi so people will know of what they have done for this country as we work on the time honoured.
