Meet Joebacs...

Oftentimes when you watch the news and see a tragedy, you can't help but wonder what if it happened to you.  The feeling is all the more heightened if you were a just meters away from ground zero when it actually happened.  Such was the case for me and my family today. 

I was on personal leave today because I wanted to spend time with my family and help with last minute preparations for my only sibling's wedding on Sunday, October 21.  We started our day quite late already.  We left the house around 9:30 am.  First stop for the day was the Sta. Clara Monastery in QC to offer eggs for good weather on their wedding day.  The roads were packed, as expected, so we reached the place 11:30 am already.  Our itinerary really included going to Glorietta for lunch because we had to pick up my sister's wedding dress at the coutourier's shop in Glorietta 2, very close to the source of the blast which was an hour or so away at that time. 

We arrived in Glorietta a little past 12 already.  We were starving already and all of us craved for Chinese.  Our usual haunts for Chinese food are Tang City and SuperBowl.  And oh yes, Luk Yuen.

For some reason we limited the choices to the first 2 restos I mentioned.  Luk Yuen crossed our minds but, for some reason, no one said it out loud.  If someone mentioned it, it could have been a strong contender. 

Fortunately we found ourselves walking towards Tang City.  Immediately after most of the food we ordered were already on our table, tragedy struck a few meters away.  We didn't actually hear anything.  The glass window of the restaurant didn't shake, no abnormal audible sound caught our ear.  We only learned that something was amiss when throngs of people, literally, poured out onto the streets.

A lot of stories swirled, different accounts of what happened.  The alleged location of the blast were quite varied.  We thought the ceiling in one of the stores just caved in.  We only learned about the seriousness of what transpired when we saw a teenager still in schock with a gash on her feet...

Before I left the house I thought of bringing my camera.  Decided against it because I figured today was going to be lackluster anyway.  After seeing the event that was unfolding, I was close to kicking myself in the butt for not bringing it.  So I just took out my Motorola V6 Maxx phone and clicked away. 

There was a sizable crowd gathering in the street between Glorietta and Landmark.  My dad and I made 'uzi' and we found an ambulance with 3 lifeless bodies lying on the ground.  We didn't see neither cloud of smoke nor dust so we thought it was concentrated in one area only.  We heard from people that an LPG tank blew up at Luk Yuen.  Close call! 

As we were driving home, we tuned in to the am stations and I couldn't help but feel sorry for the victims and their families.  8 dead and 80 people injured, as of this writing.  Anyone could have fallen prey to such unspeakable violence.  Hell, it could have easily been me or one of my family members!  Found myself analyzing the day's events and thinking if we left the house earlier and reached Sta. Clara long before lunch, we could have been in Makati around 11am.  As per our usual routine, I'm quite sure we're done eating already long before the blast we could have easily been shopping and walking around already.  Or we could have been at Goldcrest where my sister's coutourier's shop is located. 

I felt ashamed that I was concerned about not having my camera when the events were unfolding when other people's wives, siblings, friends, and colleauges died or got hurt.  Our only problem now is we don't know if my sister's dress or the shop itself was damaged.  We couldn't contact neither the owner nor the designer.  Their cellphones were ringing but no one's answering.  Not sure if they left it in the shop in their panic. 

Let's say a prayer for those who died today and a message of thanks for sparing us and our loved ones from such a tragedy.