GUAGUA, Pampanga- The body of Kapampangan nurse Marianne David, who was among the Filipinos killed in the terrorist attack In Yemen last Dec. 5, was flown back into the country by Emirates airlines at the Clark International Airport (CIA) at about 4 p.m. yesterday.
In a telephone interview, her father Jaime David, 59, said this town’s Mayor Dante Torres offered transportation to his family in going to Clark and that Torres himself would join them. “We were also told that other government officials would be at the airport,” he said.
Marianne, 22, was among the seven Filipinos killed during an Al Qaeda attack at Yemen’s defense ministry
headquarters last Dec. 5. One of the seven was a doctor. “If the body of my daughter was properly embalmed, we would probably hold her wake for three to four days before burial,” said Jaime.
He said the body was flown by Emirates airlines, although he could not say who spent for this. “My son John Mark earlier went to Yemen to arrange for the return of Marianne’s body. He said Philippine officials there, as well as officials from Yemen had been very cordial and extended all help so that the body could be flown back as soon as possible,” Jaime also said.
Yemeni President Abdo Rabbo Hadi’s statement declaring as “martyrs” the seven Filipinos who died in the
terrorist attack eased the pain of the parents of Marianne. “My daughter’s being declared a martyr comforts me.
It has eased the pain,” said Marianne’s mother Evangeline, 59, in an interview in their home in Barangay San Agustin in this town.
Jaime said the declaration has given “meaning and significance to the life of my daughter.” “She died serving as
a nurse. She died with a mission to help her sibling through school,” he added.
With Marianne gone, the Davids are left with six other children, two of whom are also overseas contract workers.
The two, James David and John Mark, were expected to arrive yesterday from Thailand and Saudi Arabia, respectively. Jaime said he was able to support his family by vending slippers which he sold on his bicycle around five barangays in his area. Evangeline had served her family as plain housewife.
“There was no premonition at all that she would leave us, although two weeks before she was killed in the bombing in Yemen last Dec. 5, her Facebook account seemed to have been deactivated. Facebook was our major means of communication,” Evangeline said.
Jaime said “it could be because she wanted to surprise us, because she was supposed to come home for a vacation this December, without giving us a date.” Marianne’s friends in Yemen said she already had a plane ticket marked Dec. 23 and that she had already fully packed up her baggage for her vacation.
Jaime said Marianne first left for Yemen in 2010 after fulfilling all requirements of the government. When she
came back for a vacation in November last year, Yemen was already beset with war. During her vacation,
the government banned Filipinos from seeking jobs in Yemen, prompting Marian to fl y first via Clark airport to Hong Kong, then to Qatar where she reached Yemen by bus.
When peace settled in Yemen early this year, Marianne even invited her mother to vacation with her last May.
“But when I thought of how much this would cost her and the fact that she bore the responsibility of sending one of her brothers to school, I backed out,” Evangeline said.
Jaime said, however, that he was assured by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) that, despite his daughter’s employment status during her death, her family would be given full benefits from the government. Both parents described Marianne as “good, loving, and helpful.”
“She has remained single because she had vowed to remain celibate and instead devote her life to helping her
siblings and other people. Before she left for Yemen, she had been a Red Cross volunteer after finishing a nursing course at the Bataan Polytechnic College,” Jaime said.
Marianne had been spending for the schooling of her younger brother Jaime David Jr. 20, who is on his last year
in electrical engineering course at the Mapua Institute of Technology, Jaime said. “Now that she’s gone, it will be her brother John Mark who works in Dubai, to take over the responsibility,”Jaime also said.
Jaime, who has been active in his parish as a eucharistic minister, catechist, and head of the Adoracion Nocturna, said there have been recent manifestations that indicated that Marianne’s spirit has returned to bid them goodbye.
The day after she was killed, Evangeline’s sister in Barangay San Juan Nepomuceno saw a lady in white enter
her room even before they learned about Marianne’s death. During the interview with him, Jaime pointed to a small butterfly that entered the living room door and flew towards and touched briefly Marianne’s graduation picture, which had two lighted candles before it, and then again fl uttered outside.
“It is so comforting that her spirit is already here. I want to tell her that I love her very much,” said Evangeline.
But no tears flowed anymore.
