MANILA, Philippines—Two weeks ago when she passed the Glorietta 2 mall in Makati City, she felt a chill as it dawned on her that her husband might have stood on the same spot before he was crushed by steel beams and rubble in the explosion on Oct. 19, 2007.

It was, Marie de Jesus said, as if unseen hands were dragging her into the depths of the damaged mall. “I heard something thud on the ground, as if something had exploded from a distance. I felt as if there was a hole in the ground. But there was nothing,” she said.

Eleven people, including her husband Jose Allen, died and more than 100 were injured in the explosion that rocked the mall an hour past noon. According to police investigators, the blast was triggered by methane gas trapped in the building’s basement.

De Jesus has visited Glorietta 2 a couple of times and, she said, the fear was present each time.

Why did it have to be my husband? she would wonder as she walked past the closed portion of the mall, still undergoing renovation even after a year.

“I miss him so much. I can’t avoid thinking of him whenever there’s a birthday or any other special occasion,” she said.

She is painfully reminded of him whenever one of their three children falls sick: “When I tend to my children alone, I can’t help but wish that he were here with me, to be my partner always.”

House too far

De Jesus still lives in her sister’s house at the Multinational Village in Parañaque City. She makes a living helping out in a barbershop and selling ready-to-wear clothes.

She refuses to live in the house in Cavite that the mall owner, Ayala Land Inc. (ALI), had given her. In her reckoning, it is too far from where her relatives live and from possible business opportunities.

ALI had offered each of the families of the 11 victims a house worth P4 million and P1 million in cash by way of a settlement.

In a previous interview, De Jesus said she had signed a waiver stating that she would not take ALI to court.

“It’s too far to live in,” De Jesus said of the house. “I couldn’t set up a small store there because there would be no customers. Besides, I have no money to maintain it.”

Thus, she has leased the house to a family at P20,000 a month. She has also spent the P1 million to build a small three-door apartment, which she also rents out.

“I’m able to adjust now, but it’s only now that I’m realizing how hard it is to be alone. There is no one to share life with,” De Jesus said.

Imagining

Another widow, Melanie Arroyo, imagines that her husband Anthony Marius is still around and keeping an eye on their three children.

“I tell myself he’s still here. In fact, I talk to him in my mind when I’m travelling. Sometimes he would answer me in different ways. Maybe because I know him and what he’d say,” she said.

One particularly busy afternoon, Arroyo found herself unable to get a jeepney ride to Villamor Air Base in Pasay City, where she lives in a compound with her in-laws.

“I talked to him in my mind, wishing that I’d get a ride. And I did find a jeepney. It’s like he’s still with me to intercede for me and my children in small ways,” she said.

Her friends at the office would take note whenever Arroyo lapsed into a deep silence, thinking of her dead husband, a seaman who would have left for Germany a day after the explosion.

There you go again, thinking about him, her coworkers would say.

“So I try not to think about it anymore, especially the slow pace of the case. It gets tiresome thinking about it,” she said.

Slow justice

But the frustration rang clear in Arroyo’s voice as she wondered why a year had passed and there was still no trial for the people deemed responsible for her husband’s death.

“It’s a puzzle to me why it’s taking so long. We even made an appeal at the Department of Justice. Justice in the Philippines is really so slow,” she said.

Arroyo said that in May, she met with a representative of ALI who wanted to know why she was pursuing the case despite a waiver and P5 million in cash.

“I told the person, ’It’s not for the money because if my husband were here, he could make that amount in a few years.’ It’s more of an emotional decision. I pursued the case because I don’t want to have any regrets when I’m old,’” Arroyo said.

Unlike De Jesus, Arroyo has no fear of visiting Glorietta 2 despite having been there with her husband during the explosion and suffering cuts and bruises from being pinned under the rubble.

“Why shouldn’t I go back there? But then, I don’t really stay there long,” she said, adding that her family now preferred to go to the SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City.

Arroyo said that whenever she passed an ALI-owned mall, she could not help but fear a repeat of what she had experienced. But then she would try to shake off her nervousness as just a dark ghost lurking in her mind.

Closed chapter

For Amado Petras, whose son Ricardo died while at work at the Replay clothing store, Oct. 19, 2007, is a “closed chapter.”

“I can no longer bring anything back. The dead cannot come back,” he said.

Petras tries to spend as much time as he can with his two granddaughters—Ricardo’s children—who now live with their mother at the ALI-provided house in Cavite.

“I have become more attentive to them since my son died. I always try to remind them of their father even if he is gone,” said Petras, a Born Again pastor.

He said that while he had been bereaved as a father, he was still glad that the family had been able to pull through and that his granddaughters now had scholarships from ALI.

Petras said he might visit his son’s grave at the Heritage Park in Taguig City on Nov. 1 and during the Christmas holidays.

“I haven’t felt my son’s presence. I’m kind of waiting,” he said, half-joking.

Lingering

Melanie Arroyo and Marie de Jesus plan to visit their husbands’ graves at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque on Oct 19.

A Mass for Arroyo’s husband is scheduled on Sunday at noon.

The men ceased to make their presence felt by their loved ones months after the explosion, both of the widows said.

For De Jesus, this means that her husband is now at peace.

“It was my children who actually saw him,” she said. “I would only smell flowers or candles for a fleeting moment. But even that is gone. I wish I can also see him.”

Indeed, the yearning remains. When no one is watching, the widow takes her husband’s clothes in her arms, the tears mixing with whatever scent is left from a year ago.