Orphans and Widows

Contributed by: Glo A. Tuazon
Email: Twilight_glo@yahoo.com

A month after the tragedy that devastated most parts of Benguet, the families that are most affected are scrounging around trying to rebuild their lives. After the sorrowful lamentations of having to lose family members and properties, the slow and painful process of starting again from scratch and the will to hang on to sanity is a fight against self itself.

Adriel Martin Ngoloban is only 46 years old but lately felt a lot older with the death of her husband. Her husband Siegfried is one of the two firemen who perished during the rescue operations in Buyagan, La Trinidad. With two young daughters to care for and feed and put to school, an endless barrage of worry dominates her thoughts these days. For the past years Adriel had stayed a plain housewife, a decision she and her husband had to contend with nine years ago after working abroad for a long time. She had travelled to Dubai, Singapore and Hongkong to work as do most who cannot find better employment here. Though she finished a degree in elementary education (BSED), work was scarce so she had to join the hordes of OFWs going in and out of the country seeking for greener pastures. In 2000 she came home for good to start life with Siegfried, and life was good until that fateful day in October when the relentless rains pushed the grounds to cascade, burying houses...and people.

Siegfried for Adriel is everything. A loving, hard-working man. Though life was hard, he never complained much and did his job the best way he could. Like his colleaugues at the La Trinidad Fire Station, their lives were something they have to trade in the line of duty if they have to. The code that they have to live with was something their families almost always dread everytime they got distress calls. At 47, he died saving people. At 47, he died a hero. His wife said he only had one important goal left unfinished, that is to have their kids finish their education in a private school.

Richard Balusdan is the other fireman who died with Siegfried on that fateful day. In fact they were cousins, and very good friends. Richard on the other hand had 4 kids, McKlein, Emelrey, Richard and Homer. McKlein is only 16 but now feeling the weight on his shoulders. Being the eldest, he now has to be both brother and father to his siblings. Overseer of the household like his good Dad was. Trauma is the first word that comes to our minds when tragedies like these happen, and suddenly takes away the most important people in our lives. To McKlein and his siblings that is inevitable, but life has to go on and they have to move with a will as ferocious as their father’s drive for life had been.

Education too is a foremost need they have to deal with now that the sole breadwinner of the family is gone. What little resources left the family now have to make do with and find ways to push on with their dreams.

Education and work for the orphans and the widows are silent screams wafting in the cold air today. Perhaps they will have it, perhaps not. But for those who have extraordinary ears to listen to the unheard voices, hands are reaching out to you with a plea.