Her home teetering on a slope, Baguio woman recalls losing loved ones to Pepeng landslide

On the night of October 8, while typhoon Pepeng was dumping heavy rains over the Cordilleras, laundrywoman Teresita Andrada found herself shivering on the street and unable to get a cab ride home to Bakakeng Central along Marcos Highway. Giving up hope, she then decided to spend the night in the tourist inn where she works. But despite the safety and comfort the place provided for the unfriendly night, Teresita remained ill at ease. Her family, including her pregnant daughter, was out there fending for themselves. The next morning, she immediately went home. She was glad to find out her husband and four children were safe and sound, sheltered at the basketball court in front of their house. However, her eldest daughter, Leonora Picar, along with her own brood of six, were missing. Andrada remembers running to her eldest daughter’s house, only to see that it wasn’t there anymore. Pieces of galvanized iron sheets that had been its walls lay crumpled beneath mounds of earth instead. “Walang nakakita sa kanilang umakyat kaya ako nag-alala. Bumaba ako agad, tapos nakita ko wala na iyong bahay nila (I was worried because no one had seen them. I ran to their house, but it was not there anymore)," Andrada says. Running to the neighbor’s house below, Andrada asked if they had seen Leonora and her family. The neighbors said they didn’t.

The discovery With the help of a barangay official, Andrada rushed to the Baguio City Hall to ask for help. According to her, it was already 3:00 p.m. when the bodies of all eight family members were dug out - Leonora, 28; her husband Simeon, 40; and their children Edmund, 11; Edison, 10; Loudy Boy, 8; Jennifer, 5; Jane Pamela, 4; and Simeon Jr., 1. Andrada laments, “Wala man lang nakarinig na kapitbahay na gumuho na iyong buong bahay nila kasama ang mga apo ko. Wala man lang bumaba para matignan sila (No one among the neighbors seemed to have heard the entire house collapse with my grandchildren in it. Not even one went to check them out)." Leonora, who was three months pregnant with her seventh child, was dug up holding Simeon Jr. All eight members of the family were placed on wooden caskets and laid at the basketball court of the barangay. Andrada believes Leonora's house collapsed in the wee hours of the morning. Scarce burial lots Even burial was a problem, Andrada says, with cemetery lots becoming scarce due to the big number of fatalities after the typhoon. “Kumuha kami ng isang lote sa sementeryo at doon na namin sila inilibing lahat. Pinagpatong-patong na lang namin iyong mga kabaong nila (We got a single cemetery lot and that's where we buried them all. We simply set down their caskets on top of one another)," says Andrada. The lone breadwinner of the family, Andrada recalls enjoying spending time with her grandchildren after work. She shares that her work now helps her cope with the loss of her daughter and her grandchildren, including Leonora’s unborn child. Nearly two months after the deaths, however, Andrada still fears for their lives in the event of another typhoon as strong as Pepeng. Their house, a makeshift laundry room owned by her employer, stands at the edge of a slope just above the place where Leonora’s house had stood. Andrada’s family welcomes the possibility of relocation, but no concrete plans and assistance have so far been extended. She says this was the first time their place was hit by landslides. Not far from the site, two houses sitting on the edge of a cliff had also collapsed at the height of the typhoon, but nobody died. The Picar family is among the hundreds of fatalities left by typhoon Pepeng, which brought unprecedented landslides and flooding to the Cordillera region. - JV, GMANews.TV