“Jesus, I know you will bring them back to us alive”.
That was the cry of Hermosila “Mimi” Adalid, a university teacher in Bais City, Negros Oriental, whose son Edsil Jess Adalid, 34, and his wife Alexis Gale, 25, remain missing after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake hit Myanmar on March 28.
Edsil teaches music and Alexis Gale is an information and communications technology teacher at Mandalay International School of Acumen in Mandalay, the second-largest city in Myanmar after Yangon.
His mother, who teaches at the Negros Oriental State University Bais Campus, told DIGICAST NEGROS on Tuesday, April 1, that she is banking on the 91-member Philippine contingent that left for Myanmar to find her son and his wife.
They are two of four Filipino teachers missing in Myanmar, she said.
The Philippine humanitarian responders left for Myanmar on Tuesday to assist in the recovery efforts following the devastating earthquake. She said her husband, Eduardo, and one of their children were hoping to go with the Philippine contingent to Myanmar to search for her son and his wife but were told it is not possible as it is not safe.
So they have no choice but to leave it to the experts to do all they can to find them, she said.
Bais City Mayor Luigi Marcel Goñi said he got in touch with the Office of Civil Defense to relay the request of the family members to join the rescuers and is helping them with their passports.
“But I also advised them not to go because it is very chaotic there, and to leave the search to the authorities,” he said.
Hermosila Adalid said her son and his wife had been teaching in Myanmar for about two years, having left the Philippines in 2023.
The couple were living in a unit on the 9th floor of Building D of Sky Villa, a four-building residential property in Mandalay.
She was told only one of the four buildings remain standing. Building D where her son and his wife lived did not collapse during the 7.7 earthquake but during an aftershock, she was told.
Adalid said she was informed that her son’s belongings, including his choir conductor’s coat, was seen in the rubble of the collapsed building.
However, the couple were not found at the site , which gives her hope that they were not in the building when it collapsed or were able to escape.
Communication lines are down so it is very difficult to know what is happening, she said.
She said they received news recently that a Burmese national found her son and his wife alive and that they are in a hospital but no one is allowed to enter.
Adalid said she does not know if the Burmese physically saw her son and his wife or saw their names on a list of survivors.
The Filipino community in Myanmar are searching for them, she said.
Edsil Jess, a graduate of Silliman University, taught at the School of Performing Arts in Bais City, before he and his wife moved to Myanmar.
They like it in Myanmar because teachers are highly respected and are paid well there. The parents and students are very respectful, the cost of living is cheap and they are given free housing, she said.
The couple’s Filipino co-teachers are camping outside the Mandalay International School of Acumen, she was told.
Adalid said she posted photos of her son and wife on social media in the hope that someone will recognize them in Myanmar and let her know that they are safe.
She is calling on everyone to pray for a miracle that her son and wife will be found alive.*