The nation continued to pray for positive results as authorities led by President Benigno Aquino III pressed on overnight in their search for Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo, Cebuano pilot and school owner Jessup Bahinting and Nepali student pilot Kshitiz Chan in the waters off Masbate province.
The three failed to make it out of the Piper Seneca plane that crashed into the sea on Saturday afternoon after it experienced mechanical trouble during a Naga City-bound flight from Cebu’s Benito Ebuen Airbase. Robredo’s security aide, Chief Insp. Jun Abrazado, managed to regain consciousness and exit the plane just as it began to sink.
Abrazado said he tried to unfasten Robredo’s seatbelt and free him, but gave up as brine filled the fuselage. Robredo’s aide joined in the search and rescue operations before he was admitted to a hospital in Masbate.
Understandably, Abrazado is still recovering from the shock of the crash that clouded his memory. Many therefore hope that Robredo, Bahinting and Chan somehow found a way to escape the plane.
At best, the currents could have swept the three to some isolated location. The sea did that to survivors of the 2008 sinking of the MV Princess of the Stars. Last Saturday, Robredo called before the plane crashed, his wife Leni said. He is a good swimmer, his family said.
But so far only a bit of the plane’s wing and its flight plan has turned up and rescuers needed special equipment and extra grit to scour the 150-feet deep area where the plane fell.
The praying will continue, as in Plaza Rizal in Robredo’s home Naga City, where he was the longtime mayor prior to his appointment into the Department of Interior and Local Government. Naga residents will keep vigil and knock on heaven’s door, pleading for help, even if it should take a miracle.
In Cebu, authorities at the airbase and of Bahinting’s AviaTours, which owns the plane need to prepare in time to examine what led to the crash and if necessary account for it. Now is the time to hope. But whether or not the search and rescue efforts yield positive results, questions will be asked.
The men who have yet to be found were persons, like everyone else, of special consequence.
Chan represents foreigners who prepare for their future through studies in Cebu. Like the Iranian students who figured in the fall of a bus into a ravine in Balamban town in 2010, he was getting ready to fulfill his dreams, not rush headlong into nightmare.
Bahinting just last week flew into Cebu in a flight that started in the dark of night to secure bottles of anti-venom from Camiguin Island. They were administered, in the nick of time, to zookeeper Ronaldo Aventurado who was bitten by a cobra.
Robredo, through his performance, appeared in the contention for Cabinet valedictorian, so to speak. It took months for the President to warm up to him and give him his portfolio not just in an acting capacity.
As the hours ticked by, it is hoped that, despite the worst case prognostications, the three men survived the incident. Only time will tell if they did.