Survivors bothered by slow pace of 'Yolanda' fatalities identification

TACLOBAN CITY, Nov. 7 (PNA) -- For Geselle Gregoria, 37, moving on from the tragedy brought by supertyphoon Yolanda could have been easier had the authorities fast tracked the process of identifying casualties, including her two children.

Gregoria is a resident of San Jose district, one of the badly hit communities where nearly half of the city’s more than 2,000 casualties were found.

Three years on, she’s still hoping for the government’s speedy effort in the identification of cadavers.

She believes that her son, Mark Anthony, 13, was buried at the mass grave in Holy Cross Memorial Garden. Her other son, Mark Dane, 9, remained missing.

She admits that until there’s no proof of Mark Dane’s death, she still hopes that her son is alive.

“I always wanted to know the results as soon as possible, but all I can do now is to wait while authorities are doing their job,” Gregoria told PNA.

Karine Matobato, 32, also a resident of San Jose district, lost all her four children when the monster typhoon unleashed its wrath. 

She was informed that Nicole, 8 and Kathleen Mae, 6 were buried at a mass grave in Holy Cross Memorial. The bodies of Mark Nelson, 5, and baby Nathan are still missing.

“I blamed myself for the death of my children because just ignored evacuation warnings,” she admitted.

She has been patiently waiting for the identification of her children’s remains. On Tuesday, the two mothers will visit the mass grave to commemorate the 3rd year anniversary of the disaster. They will light candles and offer flowers in nameless graves.

Earlier, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), the agency tasked to supervise post-Yolanda recovery, had sought for updates on the DNA testing and cross-matching between the survivors and cadavers from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Manila.

The NBI responded saying that out of 2,284 samples from the victims, only 35 bone samples have been processed.

From 1,021 relative’s reference samples of victims, they have profiled 967 of them using PowerPlex System, a protocol which allows co-amplification and four-color fluorescent detection.

The NBI stopped the process in September 2015 due to lack of reagents, pending delivery of all the DNA kits and consumables to complete all the examinations and identification. (PNA) JMC/SQM with Ana Rose Cinco & Yancy Marie Claridad (OJTs)