Funeral instead of Valentine’s date

A resident points to the shanty where a vintage bomb exploded, killing Domingo Respecio and wounding Leonel Adlawan in Minglanilla town, southern Cebu. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO GMA REPORTER CHONA CARREON)

Joan Jayme was looking forward to a date on Sunday with her live-in partner Dominggo Respecio.

Instead of preparing for the Valentine’s Day date, the woman will be busy attending to her partner’s funeral. Respecio, a welder, died while his companion Leonillo Adlawan was wounded after a vintage bomb that they tried to cut into half exploded in a shanty in Barangay Pakigne, Minglanilla town, south Cebu last Tuesday dawn.

Jayme, 27, said she felt bad that she failed to save her partner from danger.

Jayme said Respecio, her partner for four years, never told her that he had found a World War II bomb. “I could have advised him to dispose of the bomb or turn it over to the police,” Jayme said in Cebuano in an interview with Cebu Daily News.

The man had promised to treat his partner and their three-year-old son to a date on Sunday.

“We already agreed that we will go to the plaza on Sunday, but it’s not possible now because of what happened,” she said.

Dominggo Respecio. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO GMA REPORTER CHONA CARREON)

Jayme said Respecio and Adlawan had been trying to open the vintage bomb in the past three days before the tragic incident.

The two men used a grinder to cut the bomb. They thought that gold can be found inside.

Jayme narrated that the explosion was so loud that she thought there was an earthquake.

“I was awakened because of the loud explosion until one of my relatives told me that something had exploded in our shanty at the back of our house, which was used as his shop,” Jayme said.

The woman later found her bloodied partner slumped on the ground.

Respecio was brought to the Minglanilla District Hospital but did not make it alive.