Sunday, June 30, 2008 Sincerity foils would-be attacker By Katrina A. Balmaceda Sun.Star Correspondent
TENSION rose at the Cebu City Sports Center (CCSC) yesterday after a 40-year-old man wielded a combat knife, nearly striking Ryan Go of Sulpicio Shipping Lines.
It happened as the search for victims of the sinking of mv Princess of the Stars reached the end of its first week, with only 49 bodies shipped to Cebu.
Alith Chavit, a tricycle driver from Nasipit, Agusan del Norte, got tired of waiting for more bodies to arrive and approached the CCSC help desk at 7 a.m.
He had been keeping vigil since Wednesday, waiting for news about his wife, Lorie.
He said he confronted Go, Sulpicio assistant vice president, to demand concrete answers.
“Nangutana ko’g ngano ang giluwas puro patay, dili mga buhi (I asked him why they were rescuing the dead, not those who may have survived),” an agitated Chavit recounted.
He said that Go assured him that rescuers were going around different islands to search for survivors, not just bodies.
But Chavit wondered why there was no daily report on the victims, and wanted to join the search and rescue efforts.
That was when he got out a knife from his bag and plunged it at the help desk.
He said he had brought the weapon to the CCSC in his desire to get even.
If his wife died on the Sulpicio Lines ship, he said, he thought someone must pay.
But because Go spoke to him “sincerely,” he struck the table instead.
“Siya unta akong gidunggab, pero makita man sa iyang mga mata nga sinsero siya miisturya (I was going to stab him, but I reconsidered when I saw the sincerity in his eyes as he talked to me),” Chavit said.
He admitted, though, that he still cannot accept that his wife is dead.
He did not find her among the first 49 corpses that were delivered to Cebu last Friday, but he added that he was not looking for a body.
He would only accept his wife’s death if he is satisfied with the search, and this meant, for him, joining the rescue divers.
“It’s like looking for a 25-centavo coin in your house,” he Chavit said in Bisaya, his tone rapid and urgent. “You’ll only be satisfied if you know you’ve searched enough.”
It was Technical Sergeant Guilbert Lopague of the 51st Marine Battalion who pacified him.
Lopague said only a third of the thousand family members and relatives that usually throng the CCSC had arrived when the incident happened.
Chavit calmed down when Go told him to write down his name and his intention of helping out in the rescue operations.
But even if he does find his wife’s body, he said he will never forget this ordeal.
“My wife’s loss—I will never forget it. Why? Because the day the ship sank was my birthday. That’s why she was coming home,” Chavit said in Bisaya.
He returned to the CCSC in the afternoon, but this time, he was tired, somber and unarmed. (KAB)
