BIENVENIDO Ranido wakes up every morning at 4 a.m., but no dawn has felt the same since January 8, 2026.
That day began like countless others. In the hours before sunrise, he prepared food and school items for their three children, brought them to school, then returned home to wake his wife, Rowena, with a hug and a cup of coffee. For 17 years, this had been their life -- simple, shared, and steady.
But that morning carried a weight he did not yet understand.
When Bienvenido dropped Rowena off at her job at Prime Waste Solutions in Barangay Binaliw, Cebu City, where she worked as staff in the Human Resource Department, she kissed him twice and said “I love you” twice. It was more than their usual goodbye. He noticed it and would later wish he had held on longer.
Around 4 p.m., a massive landslide inside the landfill sent tons of compacted waste crashing down without warning, burying workers and equipment beneath layers of debris.
The towering pile, built up over years of dumping, turned into a grave in seconds.
Bienvenido was working for another trash hauler in Binaliw when he heard what sounded like an explosion. He first thought it was a blown tire. Then the news came: the Binaliw landfill had collapsed.
He raced toward the site on his motorcycle, fear screaming louder than the engine.
When he arrived, chaos gripped the ground zero -- sirens, shouting, heavy machinery clawing through trash, families crying at the edges of the site. Bienvenido tried to dig with his bare hands, calling Rowena’s name, but authorities pulled him away.
“How can I stop?” he pleaded. “My wife is in there.”
Rescuers said oxygen was being pumped into possible air pockets. They told him to wait.
He waited -- through suffocating hours, through night air heavy with landfill gas, through a silence that felt louder than screams.
He searched for answers, for a safety officer, for someone to explain how a place of work became a death trap. No one came.
Morning arrived with no miracle.
On January 9, rescuers pulled Rowena from the rubble. She did not wake up.
At home, three children waited for a mother who would never walk through the door again.
Their eldest, Stephen Clark, still remembers the last time he saw her smile.
After Sinulog dance practice, he told his mother he was no longer an honor student because of one low grade. Rowena only smiled and told him that finishing school was all that mattered.
Her final gifts to her children were watches -- small, ordinary things that now mark every passing second without her.
Rowena was a joyful woman, a responsible wife, and a mother who worked not for herself but for her children’s future.
Bienvenido clings to that purpose now. Despite his grief, he promises to do everything he can to ensure their children finish their studies, even without her.
The Binaliw landfill landslide has left several workers dead and others still missing, forcing the suspension of waste collection in parts of Metro Cebu and raising urgent questions about safety, accountability, and the cost of neglect.
Investigations continue as families wait -- some still hoping, others already mourning.
Bienvenido is asking the Cebu City Government to help his children enter the city’s scholarship program.
He is also still waiting for Prime Waste Solutions to fulfill burial assistance for Rowena.
Every morning, Bienvenido still wakes up at 4 a.m. But now, there is no one to wake with coffee and a hug—only the memory of a goodbye that came twice, and a love strong enough to survive even the collapse of a mountain. (Juan Carlo de Vela)