Duterte visits wake of Iloilo sea mishap victims

ILOILO City – President Duterte on Wednesday evening visited the wake in Jaro of several victims of the Iloilo Strait tragedy.

He arrived at the Chapel of the Hills Gegato Abecia Funeral Homes in Barangay Balabago around 6:35 p.m. accompanied by Sen. Christopher Go, Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Martin Diño and Social Welfare Secretary Rolando Bautista.

The President was likewise supposed to meet with families of the fatalities in Guimaras, but could not make it to the island due to unfavorable weather conditions.

At the Iloilo City funeral parlor, 13 coffins greeted Duterte and his staff where they met silently grieving families.

Squalls tipped over three wooden-hulled outriggers in the Iloilo-Guimaras Strait on Saturday as the rest of the country was battered by rains induced by the southwest monsoon.

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) terminated its search and rescue operations the other day after retrieving all 31 casualties in the incident, four days after the tragedy. The families of passengers who perished received P50,000 cash assistance from President Duterte.

Duterte first spoke to Ma. Nieves Grandeza, who lost all of her nine companions in the tragedy.

Grandeza, 28, who hails from Barangay San Miguel, Buenavista, Guimaras, lost her fiancé, Romeo Baguio Jr., 29, and their 3-year-old son Jay Arvien Baguio.

The incident also took the lives of Baguio’s seven relatives including his parents Angelina, 54, and Romeo Sr., 56; brother Rommel, 31, and his wife Danilyn, 27, and their son, Danelle, 3; and his mother’s brother Bernardo Janson, 56, and grandson, Jared Janson.

The Baguio and Janson families were from Cebu and went to Guimaras to formally ask Ma. Nieves’ hand in marriage.

They were supposed to get back to Cebu when the incident happened.

Prior to her meeting with the President, Ma. Nieves repeatedly said there was no joy in being called survivor for apart from losing her son and fiancé, she claimed she had been blamed for the death of her fiancé’s relatives.

She said she didn’t understand why she had to live and they had to die.

Later on, Duterte talked to Marcelino Java Jr. who lost his wife, 54-year-old Adora Java, and two grandchildren Jhaeron Mars Salanatin, 14, and Jhen Lloyd Salanatin, 9.

His two other grandchildren Jan Christian Java, 11, and their cousin Jairus James Alejado, 2, survived the incident.

They reportedly watched the mountain bike race of the Salanatin kids’ father and were to unwind in Guimaras when the incident happened.