Even floods can’t stop wake in Makati village

Not even floodwaters could stop family members, friends and neighbors from paying their last respects to  Juanita Alfaro in flooded Barangay Tejeros in Makati City Saturday. Video by INQUIRER.net’s Noy Morcoso III

MANILA, Philippines–Come hell or high water, relatives and friends mourn at the flooded wake of Juanita Alfaro in Barangay (village) Tejeros in Makati City.

Alfaro, 75, died of a heart attack Thursday, a day before tropical depression “Ferdie” triggered floodwaters that drenched large parts of Metro Manila.

BOY ABING/Inquirer Camera Club

The septuagenarian’s coffin, donated by the city government, has a plastic tent that protected mourners from heavy rains.  It occupied almost a third of the width of Pasong Tirad St., where informal settlers abound in the most affluent city of the Philippines.

But the floodwater was at one point too high that a wooden platform where the coffin was placed almost floated, Alfaro’s son, Dante, told INQUIRER.net on Saturday.

Alfaro would be buried on Sunday, grief-stricken Dante said, as he gazed at neighbors and friends, their feet on their chairs as they played card games at the wake.