Tacloban City family held a wake for the wrong man

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippine – His family mourned when they found out that 56-year-old fruit vendor, Conrado Dadula, was among those killed by  Supertyphoon “Yolanda”  last November 8.

Dadula’s family even  held a wake for him before his body was  buried  in a mass grave  in  Tacloban City – only  to find  out 18 days  later  that it was the wrong  man.

A day after the typhoon ravaged the city, Dadula’s own son and sibling identified him as among the bodies recovered and gathered at the City’s amphitheatre.

“Pagkatapos ng bagyo may nahanap kami, akala namin yun na sya (After the typhoon we found a corpse. We thought it was him),” Nora Yu, Dadula’s sister-in-law, said over the phone on Thursday.

“Yung kapatid ng namatay, sabi nya may nakita sya sa amphitheater kamukha ni Conrado…Nakita ng anak nya at saka ng kapatid ni Conrado. Akala sya nga yun (His sibling told us he saw a body at the amphitheatre that looked like Conrado…His son and  sibling  though it was him),” Yu said.

The grieving family immediately held a wake for Dadula for a night (November 9), lit a candle for him and offered  prayers for his soul before he was  buried along with other  people killed by the typhoon.

But on Wednesday (November 27), or more than two weeks after the mass burial in Tacloban, Yu said Dadula’s family was told by a neighbour that Conrado’s body was found along the road near their house in Magallanes Street, Barangay 51.

“Kahapon, may naglilinis sa kalye nila, nakita nila yung patay.  Nakita nila nandun yung wallet may ID.  Na-confirmed namin na sya yun (Yesterday, a neighbour cleaning the road found the corpse of a man. The ID found in the dead man’s wallet confirmed he was Conrado Dadula),” said Yu.

She said Dadula’s body was starting to decompose when the neighbor found him.

“Sino yung nilamayan natin? Akala natin sya na yun (So who was the man we held a wake for? We thought it was Conrado),”  Yu said when asked how  Dadula’s  family reacted to the latest news.

“Sabi ng anak nya: ‘Parang si Tatay e (Even his son said the first body looked like his father).’”

Yu suspected that  Conrado might have been  planning  to join  his wife, Lilia,  and  their two sons, who evacuated  to a hotel but was hit by a falling tree on  his way. She said Conrado  and his other son, Orlando, were left  at the house  during  the typhoon.

“Tingin naming, hahabol sila sa hotel kasi noong mahanap ang bangkay  ni Conrado, naka-helmet at naka raincoat. Magmomotor siguro sila (We think they planned to follow the family to the hotel because he had a helmet and wore a raincoat. They planned to ride in a motorcycle),” Yu said.

Unlike Conrado, his son Orlando remained missing, Yu said.

INQUIRER.net tried to talk to Dadula’s wife but Yu said her sister-in-law was too  devastated to speak to the media.

“Hindi masyadong makausap ngayon. Iyak ng iyak (She has been crying. It’s so hard to talk to her),”  she said.

Yu said  Dadula’s  family is now preparing another wake but this time for  their real loved one, who perished from the typhoon.