Guinsaugon landslide victims find love in each other

By Ronron
August 12, 2007

Victims of the massive landslide last year in Southern Leyte province have found comfort and love in each other as they try to get over the pain of losing their loved ones.

For Levi Pagulong, 42, one of the 19 living survivors of the February 17, 2006 tragedy at Barangay Guinsaugon in St. Bernard town, starting to live a new life with fellow victim Arcile Japson, 26, has helped each of them move on from the grief they were in for months since the incident happened.

Pagulong and Japson met at the Cristo Rey High School at the town proper where all victims of the landslide were temporarily billeted after the tragedy struck. The former lost his wife and four children in the incident, while the latter lost her parents, four siblings, and a child.

They started living together in August last year and now, they have a baby girl named Lovely, who will turn three-months-old this August 20th. The couple, however, has yet to get married.

“It helps that I have found her (Japson) because at least, I now have a new reason to live, much more now because of our daughter,” Pagulong said in the Cebuano dialect when Manila Shimbun visited them last August 8 at their temporary residence at the New Guinsaugon Village in Barangay Magbagacay, St. Bernard.

“I’m happy because she takes care of me too, especially if I am tired from work,” he added.

Manila Shimbun first encountered Pagulong when he was presented to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during the latter’s visit to the landslide site a few days after the incident. Many were moved and fell for him when they learned that he virtually fed by accident his three-year-old daughter to the creeping death as they were both struggling to get through the flowing thick mud right inside their residence.

Lolito Paler, 38, also suffered the same fate as that of Pagulong, and went on to follow the latter without having an agreement in entering into another relationship.

Paler’s new wife, Nerissa, 32, told Manila Shimbun that the former’s wife and two children were also buried alive by the landslide in Barangay Guinsaugon.

“When I met him last year in Hinundayan (a town near St. Bernard) where he worked as a construction worker, I would really see him get drunk most of the time. And he would repeatedly express his grief over the loss of his family, the remains of whom have remained under the rubbles,” Nerissa shared, speaking in Cebuano.

The Paler’s started living together in August last year, and married in May of this year.

Both the Pagulong’s and Paler’s admitted they are aware of talks coming from other people that pass judgment on their decision to get romantically involved that soon.

“Although it (having new partners) is not officially banned, but you cannot stop people from saying that it is to some extent disrespectful to your loved ones who passed away when you don’t wait for a year to pass since the incident happened,” said a lady resident from an adjacent village who wished not to be identified.

But this kind of comment is not taken seriously by Pagulong and Paler.

“During our wedding day, he hardly smiles and expresses sweet gestures towards me because he was having mixed emotions – he still has in his mind his family, he is excited to start a new life with me, and he is wary about what other people might say. But I understand that. So I was the one joking around to make him more at ease,” Paler said of her husband.

“What is important is the feeling of yearning for my loved ones who passed away is assuaged by the ones who have replaced them,” Pagulong said for his part.

Pagulong admitted that up to these days, he still remembers the incident and misses his family, especially on occasions that he is alone, with nothing to do.

He said he even remembers his young children when he plays with Lovely because the former used to sit on his tummy and chest when he plays with them when he is not on the farmland.

“Sometimes, I really see him cry when he remembers his family. But I boost him up by telling him that his tears will not bring back the lives of his family. And then, I try to talk about lighter things to divert his thoughts,” Paler said of her husband.

Pagulong and Paler admitted that the memories of the tragedy and their loved ones will never be gone but their new partners and family now will always serve as part of the therapy who dictate them to keep going in life and face the days ahead of them.

Over a hundred persons were recovered dead when Guinsaugon was covered by the landslide but almost a thousand others were buried alive and have been decided to be no longer unearthed./DMS