A miracle, Army general says of GMA aides surviving crash

GAMU, Isabela — "It was a Good Friday miracle, it was a lucky Friday the 13th."

Thus said Brig. Rodolfo Alvarado, commanding general of the Army’s 5th Infantry Division, upon seeing the 11 passengers of the ill-fated Bell 250 helicopter who all survived the crash last Friday, the day Christians commemorate Christ’s passion and death.

The survivors were members of an advance party from the Presidential Management Staff and the Presidential Security Group who were sent to secure the arrival site of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the remote mountain town of Asipulo in Ifugao.

Their Air Force helicopter plunged at about 10:30 a.m. into the thickly forested slopes of Barangay Ekip in Bokod, Benguet, near the foot of Mt. Pulag, Luzon’s highest peak, due to zero visibility.

But miraculously, none of the passengers, including the pilots, died despite the chopper’s being a total wreck.

Alvarado said in an interview via cellular phone that he could not believe that any of the passengers would survive such a crash, let alone all of them. He said the crash site’s terrain is so rugged that chances of survival were supposedly slim.

Upon learning about the accident, Alvarado immediately mobilized the 5th ID’s rescue team from their base at Camp Melchor de la Cruz here, about 15 hours via a rugged mountain highway to the crash site.

The rescue team had a difficult time reaching the crash site since they had to hike steep mountain trails in a very remote part of Bokod surrounding Mt. Pulag, for several hours before reaching it in Ekip, a small village inhabited by the Ikaraos, a gradually vanishing tribe.

Alvarado, newly designated commander of the 5th ID, said he was expecting to see the worst when he personally supervised the rescue operation.

He said the incident could have been another tragedy in the history of Philippine aviation, were it not for the skills of the pilots who enabled the passengers to survive.

In 1999, President Arroyo’s husband Miguel also narrowly escaped an air crash in the same area.

The passengers of the ill-fated aircraft were Clark Alcantara of the PMS, Air Force pilot Capt. Nomer Tomeza, his co-pilot Lt. Fernando Manoso, Capt. Hilario Bahia, S/Sgt. Peter Bersola, Senior Inspector Rolando Balasabas, PO3 Cipriano Beltran Jr., S/Sgt. Romeo Balisacao, one Chief Inspector Daca, Inspector Tacobanza and Airman First Class Frial, all of the PSG.

All of them are now recuperating at the Philippine Military Academy Station Hospital at Fort Del Pilar in Baguio City.