Brewing hope: Survivors of tragedy serve Cebu’s best coffee

CEBU CITY, Philippines–It was midnight of April 11, 2019 when Cebu City was unexpectedly struck with a tragedy in a café which many considered to be a safe space as it is located near a university on F. Ramos Street.

The Good Cup Coffee Co., only four months old then, was building its reputation to be the go-to-place for the best coffee in Cebu City, when a gunman barged inside the shop and in less than five minutes killed award-winning barista, John Michael Hermoso.

The gunman also shot Kis Trivyl Ramos, who was a graduating Psychology student at the University of the Philippines Cebu. She was rushed to the nearby hospital but attending doctors said she had died even before reaching the emergency room.

The same gunman also wounded two individuals: Jerome Amada and Sherwin Rivera.

Amada and Rivera were rushed to a hospital and were fighting for their lives while the coffee shop they dearly loved became a crime scene surrounded by police tape; its bright yellow color warned curious bystanders to refrain from crossing the line as the area needs to be isolated and protected to preserve evidence.

The series of events has been a blur as the management faced the media to answer questions, coordinate with authorities, and manage the welfare of the rest of the employees.

READ: 2 killed, 2 wounded in a Cebu coffee shop pre-dawn shooting

Meanwhile, the shooting incident sent the authorities in a frenzy of examining various angles.

Why was Hermoso, the cafe’s co-owner, shot?

Why was Ramos killed?

Was it the gunman’s intention to also shoot Amada and Rivera or were they simply unfortunate victims?

Police looked into various angles including a possible love triangle between Hermoso, an ex-girlfriend, and the former suitor of Hermoso’s ex-girlfriend.

The authorities also looked at the angle that maybe John Michael’s death was business related.

Earlier in the investigation, police said that they had reason to believe that John Michael was the sole target of the gunman.

Hermoso, who was 29 years old at the time of his death, sustained gunshot wounds in his vital organs: intestine, liver, kidney, heart, and lungs.

READ: Police looking at love triangle as possible motive in fatal coffee shop shooting

Two days after the shooting incident, on April 13, 2019, police said they are inviting two persons of interest with Police Major Eduard Sanchez, Fuente Police Station chief, saying that it looks like the intruder was a seasoned gunman as the six empty bullet casings from a caliber .45 pistol hit all targets.

Hermoso and Ramos sustained two gunshot wounds each while Amada and Rivera each sustained a bullet wound.

On June 10, 2019, the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) identified the gunman as Hans Jurgen Dingcong, who was described as an acquaintance of Hermoso and a former suitor of Hermoso’s past lover.

Dingcong is also a gun enthusiast.

READ: Police eye two ‘persons of interest’ on coffee shop shooting incident

READ: Good Cup Coffee shooting: Suspect identified; murder complaint filed

The family of Ramos filed charges against Dingcong following the police’s identification of Dingcong as the gunman.

But the Hermoso family held back saying that they believe that there was a mastermind behind Dingcong’s act.

At the time of this writing, 2 p.m. of August 24, 2019, the police are still looking for Dingcong.

Aftermath

On Friday, August 23, CDN Digital stepped inside the café to check on how the place is doing four months and 12 days after the incident.

The entire room smells of freshly-brewed coffee, the exact smell that wakes people up in the morning to kickstart their day. The place was pristine. The cake products sit on the chiller waiting for the next customer to order a slice.

The last time the crew made it here, the place was dark with the blinking red light of the police car delivering a message that something has gone wrong in the shop.

But on August 23, the place was an image of stillness and peace. It was exuding a vibe of hopefulness and recovery.

You would not even know that a tragic story happened inside the space.

The coffee shop closed its doors for almost a month after the shooting incident happened on April 11 as the management extended assistance to help the victims and their families.

The management paid for the hospitalization expenses of the survivors and covered the burial fees of the slain victims.

In an exclusive interview,  Gio Visitacion, proprietor of The Good Cup Coffee Co., tells CDN Digital that losing Hermoso and Ramos was the hardest part of getting through the entire ordeal.

Hermoso was his business partner and a close friend while Ramos was a trusted staff.

Continuing the business that he started with a close friend after the said friend was killed in the store that you built together was a challenge for Visitacion.

The company lost millions of pesos. The memory of the crisis inflicted a negative image on the cafe’s reputation. Visitacion was not sure about what the future hold or if there was a future at all.

With the little faith left in his heart, he waited.

Although waiting for almost a month seemed like forever.

But Visitacion saw a ray of light when the team members expressed their desire to pick up the pieces and rebuild their operations. Two of the individuals who expressed their interest to continue working for the shop were Amada and Rivera, the two persons who sustained gunshot wounds. At that time, they were still recovering from their injuries.

Visitacion said he was motivated by the staff’s commitment to the company even after the tragic incident that happened to them.

He knows that waking up in the morning to report to the shop to serve coffee and pastries may look like a small feat.

But to Visitacion, it was a huge leap toward moving forward and healing.

“They (staff) became my motivation to work, to improve our craft, to move on and slowly heal,” says Gio.

The Good Cup Coffee Co. officially reopened on May 6, 2019 or 25 days after the incident.

From 10 team members, which included Hermoso and Ramos, their workforce was down to eight.

That meant significant adjustments on their workload and division of labor.

Changes

Visitacion was still reeling from the death of his friend when the coffee shop re-opened on May 6.

But to bring the business back up, he had to think straight and strategically plan about what is good for the business. Hermoso would have urged him to do the same thing if he was alive.

Hermoso’s death meant that the company lost one of its major shareholders.

But Visitacion was not inclined to welcome another investor to take Hermoso’s share. He decided to keep the ownership to himself with the assistance from his immediate family.

Taking on Hermoso’s share spelled additional work for Visitacion. He now handles both the administrative and operations side of the business. Fortunately, he was able to solicit the help of his family members including his brother.

While he can take on these tasks, the question as to who will take on the place of Hermoso as the barista was the elephant in the room that they have not quite discussed.

Hermoso was undoubtedly irreplaceable.

After all, he was considered the best coffee bean roaster and barista in Cebu. Hermoso received various awards in this field including the honor of being the champion of the Philippine Brewer’s Cup on February 2019, only two months before his untimely demise.

In fact, even before his death, Hermoso was set to compete at the World Coffee Championship in Boston, USA.

Fortunately, John Somarago, who shares the same first name as Hermoso, rose to the occasion and volunteered to take the place of the award-winning barista.

Somarago, 32, took upon himself to learn the craft of roasting beans and has swiftly learned the tricks of the trade.

He used to be a kitchen staff, the Good Cup’s “good” cook,  with ten years of culinary experience behind him.

The death of Hermoso challenged Somarago to learn something he has never done before.

“Everytime I roast beans, I remember John (Hermoso). We were such close friends. He was an expert at this (roasting) and I can only hope to be as good as him in the future,” Somarago tells CDN Digital.

Somarago says he now enjoys roasting, although he occasionally miss cooking.

But he just keeps in mind that roasting coffee is simply “cooking coffee.”

Addressing the concerns on safety, the management had made sure that a security guard is present from the time the cafe opens at 7 a.m. to the time it closes its doors at 7 p.m.

Visitacion said the guard stays until all the staff leave the store.

“The security guard is really here to keep the staff and the patrons safe,” says Gio.

Aside from the current staff taking on new roles, Gio says they are now hiring new staff since the coffee shop is slowly starting to enjoy brisk business.

However, the staff will still be kept to a minimal number because Gio says he no longer wants to expand the cafe.

Instead, he wants to focus on distributing more beans to other parts of Cebu and more areas in the Philippines.

Moving forward, Visitacion says they see the need to grow their wholesale business, distribute the beans, and spread “the good cup” to the entire Philippines.

Back home 

Amada, one of the incident’s two survivors, was making espresso when CDN Digital saw him inside the shop. He is officially back at work this month, August 2019.

Rivera, the other survivor of the shooting incident, will report back to work on September 2019.

Amada’s colleagues described him as a “changed man” after his near-death experience last April 11.

The gunman shot Amada once and the bullet almost pierced his heart.

Being given a new lease in life made Amada ponder on the meaning of survival and the purpose of living.

Amada says the most striking experience for him was when his churchmates visited him at the hospital and prayed for his recovery. He says the visit made him realize that he never really thanked God for all the blessings he received.

Before the shooting incident, Jerome was a high school graduate, who worked in retail stores and fast food restaurants to help his parents. He was the eldest child and the only male in a household with six siblings. .

He shares that he was addicted to playing video games at internet cafes and spent late nights in drinking sprees with his friends.

After the incident, Amada has dedicated his life to God with a promise to change his ways.

Amada now spends his evenings at the Glory Christian Center located on V. Rama Street, where he manages his time in participating in prayer workshop and Bible studies.

“Naka-realize ko nga naa gyud diay ang Ginoo nagbantay nako (I realized that God is really there watching over me),” he says.

Jerome chose to go back to The Good Cup Coffee Co. because he was grateful for Visitacion’s help to him and his family after the incident.

He says he loves his workspace even though it reminded him of one bad memory.

But Amada chose to remember the good ones. He says it is the love of his colleagues that heals the trauma brought about by the incident.

Good cup 

Visitacion knows that they cannot turn back time and erase the tragic incident that has now become a part of The Good Cup Coffee Co.’s history.

But moving forward, Visitacion and the brave men and women of this coffee shop can only serve one good cup of coffee after another to make people understand that their story is more than just what happened on April 11, 2019.

A good cup of coffee is what they can provide to tell a part of their story that has not been reported in the media.

To Visitacion and The Good Cup Coffee Co. team, the café is not just a coffee shop.

Just like the story of every Filipino, the café is a place where hope brews; a place where there is never a shortage of faith, hope and love because the people in it fuel each other with positive reinforcement and thrive in an open environment where they can freely discuss and share their learnings.

Standing tall with courage in their hearts, The Good Cup Coffee Co’s baristas, waiters, staff and management await every person who push the door and step inside their most revered space.

For Visitacion, the café is a space where survivors of tragedy can serve the best beverage with hopeful smiles on their faces.

This is how they will continue to honor Hermoso and Ramos, who are, most probably, brewing their own drinks wherever they are right now. / Edited by Cris Evert Lato-Ruffolo

TAGS: John Michael Hermoso, Kis Tryvl Ramos