The flag flew at half-mast in a small village in Maramag town in Bukidnon as the community waited for the bodies of two its sons who died in the July 4 military plane crash in Patikul, Sulu.
The two – Private Vic Monera and Private Mark Nash Lumanta – were among the dozens of young soldiers who died in the C-130 plane crash just days after they graduated from the Army Training Center in Camp Ositio Bahian in Malaybalay City.
Their burnt remains were among those flown from Zamboanga to the 4th Infantry Division headquarters in Cagayan de Oro on Wednesday, July 7. The military is set to bring their bodies to the Bukidnon village before Thursday night, July 8.
The Army’s 11th Division in Sulu was supposed to be their first assignment.
Their village, Dagumba-an, is a small, tightly-knit community that has been mourning the loss for days.
“All of us here in Dagumba-an, are one in grieving for our two sons,” said Barangay Dagumba-an chairman Adriano Balaba.
Villagers fondly remembered the two soldiers, both 25 years old. Monera was the child of Talaandig family who fought for their ancestral land.
Monera’s mother Vilma, now a mandatory representative of indigenous peoples in the village council, once took part in demonstrations that resulted in the government giving 130 members of the Panansalan-Dagumba-an Tribal Association (Padata) 355 hectares through certificates of land ownership awards.
(Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story mistakenly referred to the two soldiers as former youth activists. This has been corrected.)
Balaba said he saw the young soldiers grow up in a valley between the villages of Panansalan and Dagumba-an.
“What happened in Sulu was so tragic that our barangay council met just to honor them with a resolution. The barangay office will be closed the day they would be laid to rest because everyone in the village will attend,” Balaba said.
The village loved and was so proud of the two young men that on the day they left to train at Camp Bahian, their neighbors gave them white T-shirts to wear as Army recruits in Malaybalay City, a two-hour drive from the barangay.
Lumanta’s elder Jowena Reyes said while the two soldiers knew each other, they bonded during their Army training in Malaybalay, to the point that Monera offered to help the other’s cash-strapped family.
Monera’s mother Vilma said her son sent their family P38,000 when he received his first salary from the Army, with instructions to pay their debts and buy food.
Reyes said Lumanta, her younger brother, gave much of his salary to her when they last saw each other at Camp Evangelista in Cagayan de Oro on July 1.
“He told me to give his money to our parents. He was happy,” Reyes recalled.
She said Lumanta also handed her his framed graduation photograph and asked her to take care of it. – Rappler.com
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