As a journalist that has been looking for big stories that will place my byline at the front page of a national newspaper, my instinct told me it was the break that I have been waiting for – the unusually large number of fatalities and the victims involved, mostly children aged 7 to 12 years old, are headline-material.
After getting clearance from my editors, I immediately took the first sea trip to Bohol from Cebu the following morning, eager and excited to write the “big story”. “This is it,” I told myself, as I anticipated the news headline bearing my name the following day.
The ride was excruciating. The road was bumpy and dusty. It was as if the government has forgotten that Mabini town is still part of the Philippines, thus also needs infrastructure projects and road repairs like the other towns.
The car driver told me that the town has witnessed several bloody encounters between government troops and communist rebels the past years, resulting to deaths of soldiers and rebels - an evidence that the place was far away from civilization.
After nearly three hours of trudging the seemingly endless road, I knew I was already in barangay San Jose at the sight of several curious individuals, who were all pointing at the same direction, like they knew where I was heading even without asking them.
Barangay San Jose is a very quiet, poor, and laidback place. The air was unpolluted and refreshing, the site of trees and lush vegetations were new to someone like me, who has grown up in the city, and the people were so warm even in the midst of a tragedy. It was a pity that something so tragic had hit the place.
A resident brought me to the house of Armando Salaum, whose two kids, Anna Rose, 7, and Kevin, 11, died before reaching the hospital after eating cassava cake, which according to the Philippine Department of Health was accidentally mixed with pesticide.
“Are you from the Health Department sir?” Armando immediately asked me as soon as I entered his small hut. I didn’t see any appliances or furniture. Or any sign of the existence of electricity inside the hut. “I want my kids to be embalmed immediately because they are starting to emit odor,” the teary-eyed father said.
I was stunned when I saw the two young victims inside their makeshift coffins. Their faces were starting to discolor, bubbles continuously flowed from their mouth. It was already 24-hours since they died but they were still not embalmed.
Sitting next to the coffins were Armando and his wife Elvira, who was being comforted by her mother Evelyn. The two kids were their only children, said the grieving Armando, who answered my questions after I introduced myself as a journalist.
“I wasn’t able to give them money when they went to school but their schoolmates gave them the cassava cake that has the poison during recess,” the farmer father said, tears started flowing from his eyes, as he recalled how the two kids hugged and kissed him before going to school.
I was almost speechless when I saw Armando crying. I had prepared questions for the trip but I was at a lost that time that I cut the interview short, took some pictures, and decided to leave the hut.
Cries from nearby huts can be heard as I headed towards the small chapel where 12 of the 27 victims were brought for final burial rights. The grieving shouts of parents, mothers most especially, echoed inside the chapel. Others were hysterical, many lost consciousness.
The sight was heart breaking. Small coffins that belonged to innocent children were lined up near the chapel’s altar. Emotions filled the small place that I wasn’t able to hold my tears from flowing. It was a tragic scenery that hit me deep in my heart.
The following day, Manila Bulletin carried my story as its headline, but I had no reason to celebrate. The sight of small coffins inside the chapel, the deafening cries of parents, and the faces of Armando’s children were still fresh in my memory.
It was a coverage that I will surely never forget for the rest of my life. Now, I don’t care if my stories will not land at the front page of the newspaper anymore. I am even ready to give up my job, as long as there will be no more tragedies to take place, no more crime stories to write, and no more deaths of innocent children to cover. #
