Body of Church worker now lies at Taguig home; ma still in HK

Kristel Mae Padasas, volunteer worker who died after papal Mass. FACEBOOK PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–The 27-year-old volunteer who was killed by a scaffold that fell after a papal Mass in the Tacloban airport on Saturday once spent her birthday with children at Smokey Mountain.

Bong Recuenco, Kristel Mae Padasas’ uncle, could not remember how long his niece had stayed in the impoverished area, but remembered he even joked to her about her stay there.

“‘You might live there already,’ I told her,” Recuenco, who was at the wake of “Mae Mae,” as she is fondly called, said in the family house on Caramay Street in Lupang Katuparan, Barangay (village) Signal Village, Taguig City.

The body of Mae Mae, a volunteer of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) when she died, arrived at the family home from Villamor Air Base around 5 p.m., Recuenco said.

C-130 plane

Lt. Col Enrico Canaya, spokesman for the Philippine Air Force, said Padasas’ body arrived on a C-130 military cargo plane at Villamor Air Base at 2:56 p.m. on Monday.

The C-130 also fetched passengers who were stranded at the Tacloban airport due to a runway obstruction.

Her death was the first thing Pope Francis brought up during his homily at the Mass he celebrated for the young faithful of the University of Santo Tomas on Sunday.

Recuenco said Mae Mae was supposed to go to the province in time for the Sinulog festival after she finished her volunteer work in Tacloban.

“We don’t know why that happened. Maybe it was a way of making her wishes come true,” Recuenco said.

Mae Mae’s work in Smokey Mountain and Tacloban were only two of the many others she had done as a volunteer for a year for CRS.

Call center supervisor

Recuenco said her volunteer work—which she took on after resigning as a supervisor for call center firm Accenture—took her to the provinces of Palawan, Bukidnon and Misamis Oriental.

“She was kind, was always laughing and cracking jokes,” he said of the Adamson University Psychology graduate.

He said the last time he saw Mae Mae was on Christmas Day.

Recuenco said he asked where his niece had been assigned, and she said “Samar but that (she would be) going to Tacloban first for the Pope’s Mass.”

“And I joked, ‘You just want the food in Tacloban,”’ Recuenco said.

Mae Mae’s uncle said the details of her burial had yet to be announced.

He said his niece’s parents would have to talk first. Kristel is the only child of Paulino and wife Judy. Her family traces their roots to Buhi town, Camarines Sur province.

Mae Mae’s mother, Judy, a domestic helper from Hong Kong, was set to arrive on Monday evening.

Her father was a collector for a company, Recuenco said. The father refused to speak to reporters.

Father meets Pope

Besides leading prayers for Kristel and her parents at UST, the Pope personally met and condoled with her father, Paulino, at the Apostolic Nunciature in Manila.

On Sunday, prayers were also offered during Masses in the 78 parishes of the Archdiocese of Palo, according to Fr. Amadeo Alvero, diocesan communications director.

In a statement on Monday, Alvero said he heard from the 27-year-old’s colleagues that she had worked for the poor.

“That must be the reason why she volunteered to work at CRS. And we, too, are very thankful for her love for the Church, expressed in her love for the Pope,” he said.

Filled with excitement

Kristel had eagerly awaited last week’s visit of Pope Francis to Tacloban City in Leyte as “(i)t was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the Pope,”she had told her friend Niño Santos.

“She was filled with excitement and she was willing to squeeze her way through the crowd because seeing the Pope was already enough fulfillment for her,” Santos told the Inquirer.

Last Friday, Kristel traveled 128 kilometers from Salcedo town in Eastern Samar, where she worked as a CRS volunteer, to Tacloban City.

Among 200,000 pilgrims

She was among the 200,000 pilgrims who waited for a day with little sleep and under the rain to see and hear the Pope officiate at a Mass at Daniel Z. Romualdez Airport.

But as the euphoric crowd started to leave the airport after the Mass about 11:45 a.m. on Saturday, scaffolding supporting speakers near the right side of the altar crashed on Kristel, causing serious head and other injuries that killed her instantly.

The cause of the collapse was still unclear but gusty winds marred the Mass. Leyte was among the areas placed under Storm Signal No. 2 last Saturday due to Tropical Storm “Amang” (international name: Mekkhala).

The typhoon forced the Pope to cut short his trip to Leyte.

Two-day wake in Tacloban

On Monday, her colleagues and friends escorted her body from St. Peter’s Funeral Home where a two-day wake was held to Tacloban airport and where her white coffin was loaded on a C-130 cargo plane en route to Manila.

The parents of Padasas, who were expected to arrive in Tacloban to bring her home, failed to arrive.

About 100 of her CRS colleagues offered a five-minute silent prayer at the site where she died.

“It was a spontaneous decision,” said CRS information officer Jennifer Hardy.

She said they were “deeply saddened” over the death of Kristel, who worked as a member of the monitoring and evaluation team based in Salcedo, Eastern Samar.

The CRS is one of the international humanitarian organizations that continue to assist victims of Supertyphoon “Yolanda,”which devastated Eastern Visayas, particularly Leyte and Eastern Samar, on Nov. 8, 2013. The group joined the papal Mass as volunteers.

In a statement, Hardy said their organization “mourns her loss along with her family, friends and loved ones.”

They remember Kristel “as someone who loved to laugh and who was always ready to assist outside her normal duties. She found great joy in being able to contribute to the recovery effort by working directly with communities and families,”Hardy said in the statement.

Mt. Pulag

Santos said that after seeing the Pope, Kristel had planned to scale Mt. Pulag next month.

“She loved the outdoors and to travel,” Santos said.

He said Kristel had always wanted to work with and help communities.

She started working for CRS in July last year. Previously, she was a volunteer of the Volunteer Services Overseas, an international nongovernment organization focusing on poverty alleviation.

Santos said Kristel also had plans of going to Hong Kong to see her mother who is expected to come home.–With a report from Niña P. Calleja