Pinoys join Haiti building collapse rescue

MANILA, Philippines – Going beyond the call of duty and putting their own lives at risk, Filipino peacekeepers successfully recovered survivors and fatalities buried in the rubble of a multi-story school building in Haiti that collapsed last Friday morning.

UN peacekeepers, including Filipinos, and Haitian authorities were working round-the-clock to rescue children and students trapped in the building.

The accident left at least 30 people dead and an undetermined number injured, and authorities expect the casualty toll to climb.

Authorities said there were about 700 students with ages ranging from three to 20 attending classes in the church-run school when tragedy struck at around 10 a.m.

In a report to the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Philippine Mission to the United Nations said yesterday that the 8th Philippine Peacekeeping Contingent serving with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) who took part in the rescue operations was the first to rush to the site of the collapsed building of La Promesse School in the outskirts of Port-au-Prince.

The Filipino peacekeepers used their bare hands to pull out the victims buried in the rubble.

“Filipino Blue Berets were the first to arrive at the scene and immediately went into action, using their bare hands to roll over concrete slabs and dig through the rubble to pull out both the living and the dead,” said Ambassador Hilario Davide Jr., Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

Quoting reports from Col. Raymundo Elefante, commander of the Philippine peacekeeping contingent, Davide said the Filipinos were dispatched to the accident site in the capital’s Pétionville district by the MINUSTAH Force Commander, Maj. Gen. Carlos Dos Santos Cruz of Brazil.

Davide said Elefante led two platoons of Filipino peacekeepers under Air Force Capt. Rony Cubar and Army Maj. Donald Hongitan in the initial search and rescue efforts that led to the recovery of nine victims.

Davide said the Filipino peacekeepers, who left with Dos Santos Cruz from the MINUSTAH headquarters, even had to run the remaining two kilometers to the accident site after the narrow roadway was made impassable to vehicles by hundreds of distraught relatives and onlookers trying to make their way to the school.

They turned over the search and rescue functions to the military engineering and medical units from Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador that arrived later and focused instead on restoring order by performing crowd control around the accident site.

“Our peacekeepers went beyond the call of duty and put their own lives at risk,” Davide said.

The Philippines has maintained a steady presence in Haiti since 2004 when the United Nations sent peacekeepers to restore order in the impoverished Caribbean nation following massive protests that led to the overthrow of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide.   

The Philippines lost one peacekeeper in 2005 after gunmen loyal to Aristide ambushed UN peacekeepers and killed Army T/Sgt. Antonio Batomalaque.

At present, the Philippines has 157 officers and enlisted personnel from the Army, Navy and Air Force and 13 officers from the Philippine National Police serving with MINUSTAH.