The local government of Bais City in Negros Oriental is assisting the families of two overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who are still missing in Myanmar following the magnitude 7.7 earthquake on March 28.
Mayor Luigi Marcel Goñi said Monday, March 31, that his office has written the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) in Central Visayas to endorse a request for family members to travel to Myanmar.
“The families were here this morning and we are doing our best to arrange with the national government through the OCD the possible travel to Myanmar. We also have to follow their protocols considering that it is still chaotic now in the aftermath of the devastation,” Goñi said.
Husband and wife Edsil Jess and Alexis Gale Adalid, both teachers at Mandalay International School of Acumen, remained unaccounted for as of posting time. They are two of four registered OFWs there who are still missing.
The couple was renting a unit on the 9th floor of Building D of Sky Villa, the five-building residential property in Mandalay that collapsed during the earthquake.
Hermosila Adalid, Edsil’s mother, said the couple has been working in Myanmar for about two years now.
She said they received unverified reports that the couple was admitted to a hospital after a local rescued them. Communication, already limited in the Southeast Asian nation because of the prevailing military rule, is made worse by the tragedy.
A Filipino community is helping in the search for the missing teachers while personnel from the Philippine Embassy in Yangon are on their way to Mandalay, Adalid said.
Adalid said her husband, Eduardo, hopes to be allowed to go with the Philippine team flying to Myanmar before dawn Tuesday. The local government is helping the family acquire passports and travel documents to Myanmar.
“We are not raising our hopes too high and we need to first see at least the list of survivors to verify the information that we received about Edsil and Alexis and we are hoping for the best,” she said.*PNA