Leyte Landslide

TIME may heal grief, but a year is not enough to erase the sad memory of that tragic incident in which the entire village and nearly one-third of the residents of Barangay Guinsaugon in St. Bernard town were buried in mud and boulders.

Today’s observance of the first anniversary of the Guinsaugon landslide tragedy will be highlighted by a Mass to be officiated by Bishop Precioso Cantillas of the Diocese of Maasin, followed by wreath laying and candle lighting ceremonies, testimonies of survivors, and a floral offering by the survivors.

Other activities include a commemorative climb from Libagon town to “Ground Zero” and a commemorative walk from New Guinsaugon.

It was a little past 10 a.m. on Feb. 17, 2006, when a big chunk of Mt. Kan-abag slid down into Barangay Guinsaugon, which was nestled on the foot of the mountain, and filled the place with mud and boulders and eventually erased the village from the landscape.

Only very few of those engulfed by the rushing mud were able to escape certain death. Most of the residents who survived were away, either working in nearby villages or at the town proper, when tragedy struck Guinsaugon.

One of those who got swallowed up by the mud and yet managed to survive was Irenea Velasco, a 56-year-old widow. She was in the town proper early that morning to help a daughter-in-law who was about to transfer to a new house with her son.

She returned to their village before 10 a.m. but decided not to join her friends who were going to the school premises to attend the anniversary celebration of their women’s club.

In their house, her son Alan, 31 years old and a seaman, was then feeding the pigs they were fattening. Alan’s wife Greta was manning their convenience store while the couple’s two children were at school. Their two maids were at the house doing their daily chores.

‘Landslide! Landslide!’

Velasco said her task was to manage their bakery and that morning, while she was supervising the baker, she heard people shouting in the vernacular, “Landslide! Landslide!”

As people were running in different directions, Velasco ran to their billiard hall nearby and immediately clung on to one of the billiard table’s leg when she heard the sound of rushing mud.

“I was helpless and all I could say was ‘Lord, I surrender to your will,’” she said in Filipino.

Then there was total darkness, and she noticed that the place she where she had sought refuge did not move much.

“I was under the mud… I think it lasted for about half an hour. I was under the mud…I was just waiting when I will stop breathing,” she recalled.

But she said that all throughout her ordeal, “parang normal lang ang hinga ko (my breathing was just normal).”

Then she felt some movements and suddenly she felt the billiard table being flung towards the surface, with her still clinging hard on the billiard table’s leg. When the swirling stopped, she knew she was already at the surface.

“I could slightly see. Two fragments of window glass panes were embedded in my thigh; I pulled them out,” she recalled.

Then she realized that she was inside their store. She was able to get hold of a long stick, which she used to poke at the roofing, and make a small hole. Using the stick, she knocked on the roof and cried for help.

She also heard people nearby shouting for help. “Not just one, but many,” she said.

Help came in the form of student cadets, about 10 of them, who were conducting their own search operations even though the area was cordoned off because it was still too risky: the mud was still too soft.

The ROTC cadets from nearby San Juan town plucked Velasco out of the mire and, using her house’s door as a stretcher, carried her to safety. But along the way they met some soldiers who took over.

“This was why,” Velasco said, “in the photo that appeared on the newspaper the soldiers were the ones already carrying me, as if they were the ones who rescued me.”

But she never heard anything anymore about those who were shouting for help.

‘Vast, vast land’

Guinsaugon was a big village where people were mostly engaged in agriculture.

“It was a vast, vast land planted to coconut, abaca… that’s why the residents were all hardworking,” she said.

The residents also valued education and worked hard to ensure that their children were sent to school. In fact, many of the young people had been able to work abroad and that was one reason the village was progressive, said Velasco.

There were 17 seamen in the village, including four of her five sons, she said. This was the reason the place was then known as Seamen’s Village.

Guinsaugon also has its own public market and a health center that has oxygen and dextrose and a regular midwife, she proudly said.

But now, her village is gone.

Velasco admitted that she was traumatized by the experience. She was confined at the Anahawan district hospital for about 15 days. Then she moved to a daycare center in Barangay Mahayahay, where she lived for about two months before staying in a friend’s house. She now has a unit at the resettlement site in Barangay New Guinsaugon.

Moving on

Velasco, who was widowed in 1980, lost her son Alan, daughters-in-law Greta and Arlene, and six grandchildren in that tragic incident in Guinsaugon. Her two maids were also killed.

She now has only one grandchild left, the daughter of her son Amor, a seaman who is abroad, and her daughter-in-law Tata, who works at the municipal government of St. Bernard.

But she said that despite her grief, she can already move on with her life.

She recalled that a few days after her rescue, a nun gave her a bible, which she read and read. Finally, she learned to accept her fate. “I have surrendered to God all my worries,” she said.

But not all survivors were able to move on after the tragedy.

Josephine Sansol, 37, who lost her 36-year-old partner Tito Sansol, an ice cream maker in Guinsaugon, and their two children, Robina, 12, and Equiben, 8, in the landslide, is still coping with bouts of grief, loneliness and uncertainty.