DAVAO CITY—John Cris Alvarez, only 8 months old, was screaming. He was slipping from the embrace of his mother, Maricris, away from two other brothers and out deep in the twisting water that was swallowing their village in Davao City.
Before this, Maricris and the other residents of Matina Pangi along the river had been roused from their sleep by the rush of floodwaters that grew madder by the minute, sending them into frenzy and screaming for help.
It was almost midnight and the heavy rain had sent most of them to slumber.
Horrified, Maricris secured Baby Cris and his brothers, John Carlo, 3, and John Michael, 7. She knew that their house could be easily swept away.
They sought refuge at a neighbor’s house briefly, but this, too, was effortlessly crumpled by the rampaging waters.
And the flood started to claim the children one by one.
“Cris was crying while he was being carried by the water away from me … away from us. And what can I do?” she said.
Distressed, Maricris struggled with her two children. But while wading through the water, she lost grip of Carlo.
‘I’m very tired, Ma’
“I was telling them to hold on … to not give up. While we were swimming, Carlo must have taken in water that he was vomiting severely. And then I lost him,” she said.
And then later, it was Michael’s turn.
“‘I’m very tired, Ma,’” she recalled Michael telling her in Cebuano just before he disappeared.
“And then he gave up,” she said. “He let go of me … I tried to save him but I could no longer find him.”
Maricris cried for help but no one was there. She was only saved by a floating banana trunk.
At the funeral house where she was reunited with her dead children a day after the flood, Maricris could not help but blame herself for “failing to save my babies.”
“I never expected I would even survive. But my children are gone now. Why did it happen? How can I possibly hold out on them?” she said.
More grief
In the room where the Alvarez children were lying were the remains of Adora Baricuatro and her children, Alexis, 4, and Alexandria, 8.
The head of the family, Alexander, was the only survivor. And like Maricris, he witnessed how his loved ones disappeared.
“How I wanted to save them but there was just no way for me to do that. It pains me deeply that I failed to save them,” he said.
On Saturday, four days before the flood, Alexander married Adora after 11 years of living together.
Maricris and Alexander were not alone in grief.
Sympathy, horror
“It could have been my children,” said Leah dela Cruz. Her face was a picture of sympathy and horror.
“I probably would die myself. I could only imagine how difficult, how painful it is for them who lost their children,” she said.
After the water subsided, Dela Cruz helped her neighbors search for their missing relatives.
“I saw a lifeless child taken from the river, stuck in between a pole of a swamped house and driftwood. It broke my heart. And it dawned on me just how scary and deadly the flash flood was,” said the mother of three children aged 13, 8 and 3 years.
Along with her neighbors, Dela Cruz and the rest of her family failed to secure anything, including clothes and food, before the flood came.
Relief aid
“We do not have anything, no food, no clothes, no house. But somehow, while it bleeds my heart, I have every reason to thank God because we are all safe. My children are still with me,” she said.
Luciana Arania, a resident of Matina Crossing since 1976, said the flash flood, above all, was a test of faith.
“It challenged us to rise above the crisis and to think of others. It felt as if it were the end of the world already and it tested our faith,” she said.
In the middle of the swirling waters, her brother-in-law nearly lost his grip, she said.
“He had thought of jumping into the water with his children. He had thought of giving up out of desperation and helplessness. But out of something, he held on until the water subsided,” Arania said.
A sense of tragedy
But sensing tragedy, Martinez chose to first secure his children—by sending them aboard a flatbed truck before he went on to help some of their neighbors.
“We heard the children’s cries. ‘Help, help,’ they screamed. And so I and my wife helped them and secured them—brought them to a more secure house which the water tore apart later,” he said.
“The children did not survive the flood,” he said.
He was referring to the Valderoza siblings—Rowena, 7; Catherine, 4; and Rogelio III, 2.
Survivors
For 67-year-old Rogelio Mascarinas, the flood could have been heaven’s way of telling people to “keep their faith stronger.”
“Maybe He was trying to grab our attention or maybe He was telling us something,” he said.
Mascarinas who, with his five grandchildren, stayed on the rooftop of his house, said those who survived have just been given a new lease on life.
For Maricris, the tragic loss of her children is something that must be accepted but surely will be difficult to forget.
“Maybe, this is the will of God,” she said.
And, maybe, it was also God that was in the mind of Melchin Soreño before she was swallowed by the flood, along with their shanty.
“She kissed our Bible and then she said, ‘Help us, Lord,’” recalled Chona, Melchin’s mother. Melchin was only 2 years old.