The bodies of a music teacher and his wife from Negros Oriental who went missing following a magnitude 7.7 earthquake that hit Myanmar on March 28 have been found.
Hermosila “Mimi” Adalid, a university teacher in Bais City, Negros Oriental, told DIGICAST NEGROS on Sunday, May 4, that the decomposing bodies of her son Edsil Jess Adalid, 34, and his wife Alexis Gale, 25, were found on a stretcher in a morgue by a friend in Myanmar.
“When they were found they were hugging each other as if my son was protecting his wife but their bodies were already deformed…it seems they died on the spot,” she said.
Their bodies were about to be included in a mass cremation with others at that morgue when they were found, she said.
DNA samples from her son and his wife were taken and a group called Samaritan’s Purse had them cremated and kept their ashes, she said.
The DNA tests were conducted on April 15 and the positive results were announced by the National Bureau of Investigation through the media on Friday.
But her family was only informed that the DNA samples were positive to be that of her son and his wife on Saturday, May 3, she said. “The NBI did not inform us before releasing it to the media, they apologized,” she said.
Their ashes are at the Philippine Embassy in Yangon and they will be able to bring them home as soon as their death certificates and other papers are completed, she said.
They were told a member from both families will be allowed to go to Myanmar to get the ashes, she said.
Adalid said she had been crying for more than a month and was hoping they were still alive.
She is praying she will be able to accept what happened and understand God’s purpose and message.
Edsil taught music and Alexis Gale was an information and communications technology teacher at Mandalay International School of Acumen in Mandalay, the second-largest city in Myanmar after Yangon.
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.
Building D where her son and his wife lived did not collapse during the 7.7 earthquake but during an aftershock, she was told.*