Dreams die with young breadwinners killed in bus bombing

MANILA, Philippines – When 5 people were killed in the Jan. 25 bus blast, the dream for better lives of dozen others in their families perished, too.

After the smoke cleared from the 2 p.m. blast along the Makati financial district portion of Edsa, a major Manila highway, authorities discovered 3 dead bodies. Two of them were dismembered from the impact of a bomb planted under a seat in the middle of the Newman Goldliner, a bus plying the Baclaran-Fairview route.

A fourth person died upon arrival at a hospital. Another fought for her life but lost to too much shrapnel that got to her skull.

More than 24 hours after the explosion, families of the victims demand justice and decry the seeming delay in government’s help. Officials of President Benigno Aquino III, after all, promised to aid victims’ kin as he visited some of the bus’s passengers being treated in hospitals.



But more than the disappointment from delayed help, the fatalities’ families are hurting not only from the loss of their loved ones but from the prospect of better lives as well.

Jhohansson Reyes, 25, told his family he was attending a christening in Pasig. His mother, widowed last year, could not bear to look at her son’s remains. She sold the family car to get her boy to culinary school so he could apply for a cooking job in Australia.

“Nagpaalam siya na a-attend ng binyag sa Pasig kaya nagtataka kami kung bakit siya nandu’n,” Reyes’s aunt, Cristy de Leon, told ABS-CBN News.



Reyes was killed with his girlfriend, Shirly Kristel Ausena. Like Reyes, she lost her legs. Her relatives said she asked them for bus fare to go to a job interview. She was applying to be a waitress.

“Ang inaalala ko ‘yung lolo niya eh, paboritong apo kasi siya eh,” Ausena’s father, Wilson, said.

Irish Teniola, 22, was pulled out alive from the bus. She died at the Makati Medical Center hours after due to severe shrapnel wounds to her head.

Teniola’s mother, Imelda, said her child rarely took the bus to work as a call center agent in Makati. Tuesday was an exemption as she rode the bus to pick up her mother’s eyeglasses.

“Sa utility lang po ako. Siya nagpapaaral sa kanyang mga kapatid, paano na ito? Sana po bigyan ng hustisya ang aking anak," Imelda said.

The son of FX driver Salustiano Mariño, Gerry, wondered about the same thing. His father died upon arrival at the hospital. Gerry only learned about the tragedy the morning after.



"Napakabait po ng Papa ko, akala ko nu’ng una biro lang," he said about his father’s death.

Ramil Inoposo, a friend of Mariño, complained they do not know where to turn.

“Ang problema po namin ngayon, kanino kami lalapit para masagot nila ang expenses na binibitawan namin sa ngayon,” Inoposo said.

Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman had said that the government will shoulder all the medical and funeral expenses of the bus blast victims.

The body of another fatality, Jhonlie Daquiaog, was brought from Saint Luke's Medical Center in Taguig to his home in Laguna.



The relative of one of those injured in the blast, meanwhile, lashed out at those behind the bombing.

"Sa mga gumawa nito, bakit ‘di na lang sa mga kaaway niyo ginawa ‘yan? Idinamay niyo pa ang mga walang kinalaman. Sana mahiya kayo!” said the enraged Robert Antonio .


But the collective indignation is probably best summed up by Aileen, Teniola’s sister: “Sa gumawa noon, sana naman maawa ka naman sa mga tao na walang kamalay-malay. Ikaw din may pamilya ka, paano kung anak mo ang namatay doon?”

That question will remain unanswered as long as law enforcers are unable to give faces or names to people or groups behind the bombing, the latest in numerous that have gone unsolved, and have claimed numerous innocent lives
source: abs-cbnnews.com