Quake wrecks normal day: Dead mourned by Malapatan families
MALAPATAN, Philippines — A boy walked home from his first day of Grade 8 classes. By the shore, a wife waited for her husband’s boat to come in with the morning’s catch. It was supposed to be an ordinary Monday, but by the time the ground stopped shaking, neither of them would make it home.
In Malapatan, Sarangani, both families lost their loved ones.
Both families lost their loved ones in Malapatan, Sarangani. It is one of the four towns that bore the brunt when a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck southern Mindanao on Monday morning.
READ: Mindanao quake: Death toll increases to 45, says NDRRMC
Floregen Segafu said the day had begun like any other first day of school. She woke her 13-year-old son, Terrence, known to friends as “Pawpaw,” early, and by 7 a.m., he was already in his Grade 8 classroom.
“I didn’t expect that there would be an earthquake,” she said.
When the ground shook, panic spread through the school grounds. In the chaos, Terrence began making his way home, something Floregen did not know until it was too late. Near Daan Suyan, Malapatan, he was caught and buried in a landslide along the road.
Neighbors rushed to dig him out, joined by other parents who were themselves on alert for their own children. Floregen ran to the site, but his friends stopped her before she could reach him. They did not want her to see him as rescuers worked to free his body. She would see her son again only at the morgue.
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“It hurts, but there was nothing I could do. It was truly an accident; no one intended this,” she said. “I have no regrets, because none of us expected the earthquake either.”
What stays with her is the ordinariness of their last morning together, Terrence asking for school allowance, the same as any other day.
“It’s not easy being a mother. The last time we saw each other, he was alive, asking me for money for school. Then, when we saw each other again, he was already cold, with no life left. Even now, I imagine that he’s only sleeping.”
She remembers him as quiet and respectful, the youngest of three children and her only son, his father working abroad.
“As parents, we have so many hopes for our children, for him to finish school, get work, earn a living. I never thought he would be the one to leave me first. I wasn’t done yet, I hadn’t had enough of his life.”
Before he was laid to rest, the family asked the embalmer to open his coffin once more, so they could hold him one last time.
READ: More quake-hit areas can now be accessed, expected to yield bodies
A short distance away, in a coastal sitio battered by the waves the earthquake stirred up, 79-year-old Norma Cabeles lost the sister she calls her source of strength.
Rose Batino, 69, had gone down to the shore that Monday morning, likely to meet her husband Jimmy as he came in from fishing, checking the icebox for that morning’s catch so they could have breakfast together.
When the quake struck, the sea surged violently. Jimmy and Rose were both swept into the water near where their boat had been moored; neither survived.
“My grandchild told me Rosie wasn’t at home, so they searched for her until someone said they’d seen her in the sea. She had been carried off,” Norma recalled.
She had not seen her sister in a week and had been planning to visit that very day. “I wanted to go to the shore that day, to hug my younger sister… and then this happened to her. The earthquake caught them both.”
Hours later came the call no family wants. Rosie had been found, already gone.
Rose was the fourth of Norma’s younger siblings; Norma, soon to turn 80, is the older of the two. Despite Norma being older and unable to stand on her own, it was Rose — younger but more able-bodied — who had become her caretaker since Norma’s own children moved away to start families elsewhere.
“She was the one who gave me strength,” Norma said.
“She’d tell me, `just fight’ because I’m the sick one. She’d help me change clothes so we could go to church together, or walk along the shore. She was active in the barangay and in so many associations. I used to tell her maybe I should be the one God takes first, since I’m older. She was the only one I leaned on.”
These two families are among the hardest hit in a province still reeling. According to the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office’s progress report as of 9 a.m. Thursday, the earthquake’s death toll across Sarangani has risen to 20.
The quake’s offshore epicenter, 32 kilometers west of Maasim, registered Intensity VIII in four of the province’s seven towns: Glan, Kiamba, Malapatan, and Malungon.
Of the 20 confirmed dead, 12 were from Glan, where landslides across seven areas claimed those lives. Among the eight Malapatan residents who died by drowning and landslide were a 13-year-old Terence Segafu and a couple, Rose and Jimmy Batino. Twelve residents remain missing — 10 in Glan, two in Malapatan — as search and retrieval continues.
READ: Mindanao earthquake: Marcos says kin of fatalities to receive cash aid
The PDRRMO’s 9 a.m. Thursday’s report also recorded 150 injuries across the province, up from 114 the previous evening.
In Malapatan, DOST-PHIVOLCS recorded an Instrumental Intensity VIII — “very destructive,” the highest measured anywhere in the disaster zone. The collapse of the Sapu Masla Bridge, a critical link on the national highway, has cut off Glan and other coastal communities from vehicle-borne aid coming from Alabel and General Santos City.
Ruptured pipelines have left the entire municipality without running water since Monday afternoon, forcing thousands in areas like Sitio Pananggalon and Barangay Tuyan to rely on rationed and donated supplies. Rows of empty plastic containers now line the roadsides, waiting to be filled.
More than 1,500 homes across the province have been declared structurally compromised, the highest number in Malapatan./coa
HELP MINDANAO EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS
The Inquirer Foundation is calling for support for communities devastated by the recent magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Mindanao.
In partnership with the Philippine Red Cross, the foundation is amplifying appeals for food, clean water and other critical assistance for affected families.
Donors may send contributions directly to the Philippine Red Cross through its official transfer channels, the complete list is available on the PRC’s Facebook page.
The Philippine Red Cross has activated its emergency fund campaign and deployed teams on the ground to provide medical services, distribute relief goods and extend psychosocial support to affected families.
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