Commander Ramonito Sabang. Facebook photo
MANILA, Philippines–In the devastated city of Tacloban, there once stood a house in a village called Happy Homes where a Navy officer lost his three children from Supertyphoon ‘‘Yolanda’’ (international name: Haiyan).
Commander Ramonito Sabang, a native of Cebu City and a commanding officer of a Navy patrol ship providing a naval blockade in Sarangani, lost all his three daughters –Iralyn, 16; Shaira May, 11; Mikaera Marie, 9–in a 15-ft storm surge spawned by Yolanda on November 8.
Their household help, Marilyn, aged 20, was also killed. Fortunately, Sabang’s wife, Irene, survived and is recovering now at a hospital in Manila.
Sabang’s tragic story was narrated on the official Philippine Navy Facebook account by Commander Gilbert Pacio, a member of the multinational coordinating council organized to integrate relief efforts for the typhoon victims.
In the FB account, Pacio said Sabang recounted to him the last words he heard from his daughters:
“Pa, magdadara ka pagkaon pag-uli mo ngadi Tacloban. (Pa, bring us food when you come home to Tacloban).”
“I have a conversation with my daughters. I told them to prepare everything. I told my wife to coordinate with our neighbor for their safe transfer, but my children didn’t want to leave. I don’t know why…It hurts a lot. I lost my kids,” Sabang said.
Pacio told INQUIRER.net in a telephone interview on Friday that Sabang is recovering from the trauma, but remained sad.
“He is recovering, but every now and then when he is comforted by his friends and family he breaks down in tears,” Pacio said.
Sabang is still in pain to grant interviews, he added.
Two days before Yolanda hit, Pacio said Sabang was set to go home to Tacloban but all modes of transportation had been cancelled. He last received a text message from his wife on Friday morning, saying that the roof of their house had been blown away. After that, communications in the region battered by Yolanda broke down and Sabang lost contact with his family.
After the typhoon, he rode on the first Navy ship that sailed for Tacloban, which arrived on Nov. 10. He was hoping then that his family was safe. He reached the city in the evening, totally dark.
But before he reached their house, a neighbor told him that his wife made it through the typhoon and storm surge but his three daughters did not. At that time, they were burying the children’s bodies in a mass grave along with other dead at a cemetery.
Based on the accounts of neighbors who survived, Sabang learned that Irene and their three daughters were about to leave the house in the early morning of Friday when waters started to rise.
Irene used a wooden locker as a makeshift boat but a second wave from the storm surge swept it. The children jumped out of the makeshift boat and held on to their mother and the helper. They climbed the ceiling but another huge wave swept them to different directions.
“Irene got unconscious but got accidentally hanged on a nearby electric post while her children and maid were totally embraced by the flood. When the water subsided, she fell on the ground while the bodies of her children and maid were found at approximately 1.8 kilometers from their house,” Pacio wrote in the FB account.
This incident left Sabang “completely broken-hearted” but never did he blame God for anyone for his fate, Pacio added.
The food and medicine supplies became useless, and Sabang thought of throwing them away but instead gave it to his neighbors.
Irene is recovering at a hospital in Manila, while Sabang is in Cebu to fix important matters. They intend to go back to Tacloban on Dec. 17, or 40 days after their children’s death. They are also planning to give them proper burial.