Secret digging

• Families mourn death of 3 men excavating in Danao city backyard and 19-year-old neighbor  who tried to rescue them   
• Hunting for  buried treasure? Officials want to find out

A neighbor looks at the fenced hole, about six feet wide and 30 feet deep, in the backyard of Ernesto Ogabao, 46, in barangay Maslog, Danao City. What were they diging? Ogabo’s body was recovered in the hole with two other relatives who were helping excavate it. A neighbor, Diomel Mayol 19, also died when he went down trying to rescue them last Friday, Dec. 26. (CDN PHOTO/ JUNJIE MENDOZA)

Mystery still surrounds the death of four men, who died in a flooded pit in the backyard of a cluster of small houses in  barangay Maslog, Danao City.

Rumors of an excavation that went on for weeks in search of buried treasure were the talk of the neighborhood.

But families of the victims, whose bodies were recovered in the 30-foot-deep hole after Friday’s accident, remained tight-lipped or flatly denied the talk  of treasure hutning yesterday.

Teresita,  widow of victim Ernesto Ogabao, said the family had been  digging a water well, not looking for gold.

Three of the men who died in the excavation were relatives.

The youngest victim, 19-year-old Junnel Mayol, was a neighbor who had tried to rescue them.

Earlier reports said the victims may have been electrocuted when the water underground rose during high tide, and came in contact with a wire of an electric water pump used to extract the water.

Without an autopsy, however, the cause of death, remains unclear.

Police said the families didn’t request for an autopsy.  The human remains of some of the victims were already embalmed and placed in coffins.

Yesterday, barangay and city officials were able to recover water pumps, chlorine stocks  and cement from the hole.

The site, 500 meters from the seashore, is muddy with swampy  terrain grown with nipa palms.

The hole was fenced with tin roof sheets and tarpaulins, which hid it from view in the  backyard of the Ogabaos.  Wooden posts planted around it kept the pit from caving in.

Murky water overflowed the hole, covering the sight of scaffolding underground.

CITY TO INVESTIGATE

The lot is owned by the Danao city government but the families occupying it have no approval from the city  to live there, said Ramonette Durano Mahinay, information officer of Danao City.

She said a formal investigation will start tomorrow to look into allegations that families were hunting for buried treasure in sitio Pasil.

There was loose talk in the community that bags of golds were had earlier been recovered by the diggers.

“We will also investigate allegations that there is a financier of the digging activity in the area,”  said Mahinay.

She said there was no history of discovery of buried treasure in Danao City.

At Maslog barangay hall, councilor Filomeno Paglinawan told Cebu Daily News that old jars and antique plates were found in the 1970s near a public school but he clarified that “no gold” was discovered.

Initial inquiry by barangay officials showed that two men in multicab vehicles would regularly visit the house of the Ogabao family and bring construction materials, like wood.

Neighbors wondered why the excavation work would only go on at night, and that loud music was sometimes played as if to cover the noise of the operation.

After Friday’s accident, three men were brought to the barangay hall to answer some questions.  They were not from Danao City and reportedly worked with the victims.

Jovencio Aguilar, another barangay councilor, asked where the excavated soil or mud was stored after a day’s work because no stockpile was noted on the site.

NEED EXPERTS

“I think we need experts and other government agencies who can identify if it’s a water well or not,” Aguilar said.

Asked if permits were issued for the digging, the councilors said the barangay only issues permits for fencing and building.

PO3 Marlon Remollo of the Danao police said they couldn’t determine either what the hole was for.

“We also need help from other government agencies to check the area. We are still conducting further investigation,” Remollo said.
Two of the victims were Ogabao’s relatives —  Amick Bunconseho and Jess Christian Miguel.

Crystal, the 18-year-old daughter of Ogabao, told fire investigator Eduardo Resaldo of Danao City, that the four men may have drowned since the pit overflowed with water or they were overwhelmed by the foul odor underground.

FAILED RESCUE

Ogabao’s widow Teresita recounted that Bunconseho, her brother-in-law, was alone measuring a  steel rod  that had collapsed after typhoon Ruby, when water suddenly overflowed in the hole.  He called for help.

She said Bunconseho, who is from Negros Oriental, was on vacation and visiting their house in Danao at the time.

She insisted the hold was for a water well since it was inconvenient to pay P100 a day to buy gallons of water for laundry and washing dishes.

She said that when they learned that the hole was waterlogged,  the family  immediately unplugged the water pump so that they won’t be electrocuted.

Her husband Ernesto was the first to respond.

“Gibira sa akong bana si Amick (Bunconsejo) pero bug-aton sad baya akong bana maong na dala unya natagak siya,” Teresita said.
(Amick pulled my husband who is heavy and fell in.)

Ernesto, a multicab driver, was the family’s breadwinner.  Their 18-year old daughter was recently hired in the Mitsumi factory in Danao City.

Miguel, a relative, was the second to try to rescue the victims but he too fell into the hole. Terisita said she saw her husband grab Bunconseho in his arms.

Among the neighbors who witnessed the emergency was 19-year-old Mayol, whose mother urged him to help the three men.

“I told him (Mayol) not to go down but he held the rope. He accidentally slipped on the big rock and fell down,” she told CDN in Cebunao.

Teresita denied that the Ogabao family had already discovered gold bars and kept them.

“Kung naa na unta mi gold nakuha,  nindot na unta ang among balay karon,” she told CDN, pointing to their unpainted one-story house.

(If we really had gold, I would have be living in a beautiful house.)

The 37-year-old housewife said the family has been bothered by neighbors’ queries about alleged gold bars, and feel harassed by all the attention.

“Please stop that kind of talk because there is no truth to it,” she said in Cebuano.