Kin of missing Ilonggo seafarers keep hope alive

ILOILO CITY—Fritzie Pilota, 42, has not stopped praying and hoping that her 31-year-old younger brother Jay is alive somewhere and will be reunited with their family.

“We feel that he is still alive. He will let us know,” she told the Inquirer on Sunday after attending Mass at the Jaro Metropolitan Cathedral here, along with families of 10 Ilonggo crew members and a captain of a cargo ship that sank in the waters of Japan early this month.

The seafarers are among the more than 40 crew members of the MV Gulf Livestock 1, which sank amid stormy weather on Sept. 2 in the East China Sea.

Thirty-six of the missing are Filipinos and two each are from New Zealand and Australia.

The Japanese Coast Guard earlier rescued two Filipinos and recovered the remains of another.

“We have repeatedly appealed to President Duterte and the government to help us in pressuring other countries to continue the search for our loved ones,” Pilota said.

She said the families’ hopes of finding the missing remained because no life jackets or belongings had been recovered from earlier searches.

Exert effort

“Lifecrafts have food provisions and they may have been stranded. What is important for us that they will be found so we would know for sure what happened to them and find peace of mind,” she said.

Pilota said the families had been informed that the governments of Taiwan, China and South Korea will conduct searches in their waters. The Philippine government should also consider this a priority, she said.

“These are 36 Filipino lives. We understand that there is a pandemic that we are also focusing but if our own government will not exert effort to find them, how will the other countries do so?” Pilota said.

She said the uncertainty of Jay’s fate is taking its toll on his wife and 6-year-old son and their parents, both in their late 60s, who live in Pototan town in Iloilo province.

“My mother has been losing sleep for the past weeks,” she said.

Struggling to cope

The families of the other missing seafarers are also struggling to cope with the pandemic.

The missing Ilonggo crew are Leonido Turija Jr., Mark Glenn Suñer, Alvin Oquindo, Marlo Gallardo, Hulk Darwin Alcazar, Jessie Lacibar, Romil Pelenia, Miguel Tamonan, Richard Garvilles, and Julius Sañonte.

Captain Dante Addug, of Banaue town in Ifugao province, was also among those missing.

Many of the missing are in their early 30s and breadwinners, Pilota said. The wife of one of them gave birth a week after the the sinking.

Pilota said she and her parents, Gerardo and Teresita, had been praying and appealing that her brother “Nonoy” and the other crew members would be found.

“Please don’t stop the search. We are still waiting,” she said. INQ