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- One teenager dead and another went missing after an encounter with the police in August.
- The police claimed that Joshua Laxamana was a notorious burglar in Pangasinan.
Philippine-based Documentary Photographer Ezra Acayan shared the tragic story of the death of a Dota player, while another one goes missing.
Acayan shared a gruesome story of two friends who traveled for a Dota tournament in another city, never to return.
One boy dead. Another boy missing.
Friends Joshua Laxamana and Julius Santiago Sebastian were last seen over two weeks ago when they went on a trip to Baguio to take part in a DOTA tournament. None of them would make it back.
Four days later—Joshua’s mother, Kristine, would find his son’s bullet-riddled body at a morgue in Pangasinan. He had been killed by police.
He took it to social media and narrated the death of Joshua Laxamana. The 18-year-old was killed on his way home after participating in a tournament with two other friends. One of whom is 15-year-old Julius Santiago Sebastian, who was reported missing.
The boys, accompantied by an unnamed friend, left for a Dota 2 game on August 14. They traveled from their hometown of Tarlac City, all the way to Bagiuo City.
It was during their return that things went wrong. According to the police, Laxamana was said to have ignored a checkpoint and fired upon the officers in Barangay Poblacion, Baguio. He was killed along the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway on August 17.
He was also accused of being a notorious burglar in Pangasinan.
Police claims Joshua had fought back against cops manning a checkpoint. He died on the spot. The police says he had a gun—a .45 calibre pistol—and a motorbike. They say that he was a notorious burglar in Pangasinan.
Contrary to the claims of the police, it’s impossible as both of the boys were not from Pangasinan and Laxamana doesn’t know how to drive a motorbike.
But Joshua couldn’t even drive a motorbike—family and friends say. His mother says they don’t even own a motorbike let alone afford one. Kristine is a single mother to her three children and works several jobs just so she can support them. She does nails during the day, and sells banana cue in the street on her days off.
Joshua and Julius, both from Tarlac city, were avid DOTA players. Joshua was a top player in the region, set to compete internationally. How could he have been some notorious burglar, her mother asks. She was witness to Joshua’s passion and how hard he worked to achieve his dreams.
Other than that, the police also claimed that Laxamana possessed drugs and had the tattoo of the symbol of a notorious burglar. The truth is his tattoo is an illustration of one of the characters from Dota.
The police say they had found drugs on Joshua. They also presented to the media a tattoo on his arm, saying it was the mark of a notorious burglar. It wasn’t. It was the Queen of Pain—one of the heroes in DOTA.
He was well known in Tarlac by his username “imadotes.” His friends say it was because he loved his mother so much.
