Typhoon Reming

LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines -- Shaina Ferrer silently sat near a grotto in Barangay (village) Padang here as she lighted a candle and uttered a silent prayer.

This was the six-year-old girl's way of remembering her grandparents and two-year-old cousin who were swept away by torrents of lahar (volcanic material) at the height of super typhoon “Reming” (international codename: Durian) on November 30, 2006.

But it wasn't just Shaina. The whole neighborhood in this small community of survivors amid a rocky wasteland in Padang also marked the day with remembrance.

Around 10 households heard mass in a nipa (grass thatch) hut they themselves built for the occasion. The families also prepared a sumptuous meal that they shared with each other.

A group of communication students, who were filming the community for a documentary project, joined the feast.

Isidro Santander, Jr., a village councilor in Padang who organized the “pamisa,” reluctantly told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net) the reason he made the occasion so special.

But he later confessed with downcast eyes, “My two children and wife died in the tragedy. I lost them.”

Clad in white polo shirt, Santander said they did not want to remember the tragedy but only how they lived happily as one family before the typhoon wrought havoc on their lives.

Now, Santander lives with two other children who survived.

His eight-year-old daughter Jocel hugged him during the Inquirer interview and pointed to a scar on her face she got from the tragedy.

“I rushed her to the hospital on foot when the floodwaters calmed down. I wanted her to survive so they could start all over again. My greatest fear then was to lose everything,” he said.

Santander added that now, they have already accepted the saddest part of losing their loved ones in the tragedy.

Fr. Rommel Antiquera, of the St. Vincent Ferrer Parish in the neighboring village of Bigaa, said there were around 70 people who attended the mass.

Some of them came from the hilly resettlement site in Barangay Taysan who went down to Barangay Padang for the commemoration.

In his homily, Antiquera said: “All people have their appointed time to pass away and we should make the most out of our time here on earth.”

He said some of the villagers were moved to tears during the homily.

“I found out that some of these people had unresolved issues with their loved ones or weren't able to tell them things they wished they've said,” Antiquera said.

“We must spend time loving our families for we never know when they will be gone,” the priest said.

Felizardo Arienda, 35, said most of them had already moved on and accepted the tragedy that struck their village.

Padang is one of the villages in the southeast quadrant of Mayon Volcano where the crater rim is lowest and much volcanic debris had been deposited by past eruptions.

Arienda said they did not ask for the fateful tragedy to happen but they knew it was part of God's will. And somewhere, he said, their departed loved ones might have been happier and at peace.