One year ago, some 377 fishermen from General Santos City were caught in the middle of a perfect storm.
Nobody knew of their fate until well into the late afternoon of the following day, December 5, when a worried Dominic Salazar said only three crew members of a light boat owned by their company, Thidcor Fishing, had been found alive from a fishing fleet that consisted of one catcher vessel, a light boat and a ranger boat.
They were among the few fortunate ones to survive the 30-foot waves that battered their boats for more than 12 hours. Their 24 other companions did not. They were never found, and neither were 328 others.
Of the 377 fishermen who were officially accounted for, only 17 survived and only eight of the missing were found. The rest were long ago presumed already dead,when government rescuers gave up the vain search for their bodies two weeks after Pablo (international code name Bopha) hit landfall.
Such was the wrath of Super Typhoon Pablo that it brought death and devastation both inland and in the high seas.
On December 3, Pablo approached and battered eastern Mindanao like no other typhoon in its recorded history. It hit landfall just after midnight.
Pablo left on its wake more than 1,043 dead, most of them in the provinces of Compostela Valley and Davao Province. The figure includes the fishermen for General Santos City and Sarangani.
General Santos City Mayor Ronnel Rivera said the story of the brave fishermen who lost their lives in the storm is not lost in memory. Without them and the more than 25,000 directly employed in the fishing industry, this city would not have earned its moniker as the Tuna Capital of the Philippines.
But a year after their tragic agony and death, no one seems to remember them anymore. Even the promised marker to honor their memory has been lost in the conversation among city officials.
The city council, many of its members not yet elected when the tragedy happened, does not seem to care despite expressing interest in honoring the dead and missing fishermen as soon as they were elected into office in May.
The previous city council was even worse. When then city councillor Rivera introduced a resolution to erect a monument in honor of the dead, he was immediately met with skepticism from the then majority block identified with former city mayor Darlene Antonino Custodio.
Custodio herself promised to seriously consider the proposal. It apparently got lost along the way as nothing ever came from city hall.
Neither has the Socsksargen Association of Fishing and Allied Industry seriously pursued its commitment to set aside funds for the construction of such a memorial.
Fishing boat owners seem to have moved on having settled most of their promised obligations to the families of the victims of Pablo some for a mere P50,000 (US$1,143) cash assistance.
Maybe the even more devastating Yolanda has buried the memory of Pablo.
Still mourning
But for the wives and children, mothers and fathers who were left behind, the memory and the wounds are as fresh as they were a year ago.
Angelina Nemeño, whose husband Cornelio as among those whose body was never found, said coming to terms with her and children’s loss is a reality she already embraced. But the pitiful assistance they got from the owner of the fishing boat is still too painful to ignore.
2011 AsianCorrespondent.com