Bulacan family mourns loss of breadwinner to Naia crash
IN GRIEF Marissa Faustino Cruz, an aunt of Dearick Keo Faustino, on Monday night, says the death of her nephew is “incomprehensible.” —Carmela Reyes-Estrope
HAGONOY, BULACAN, Philippines — Dearick Keo Faustino was supposed to celebrate his 30th birthday on May 29. Instead, his family was preparing to lay him to rest after an accident at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) Terminal 1 on Sunday cut his life short.
Faustino, a senior supervisor of a publishing company in Metro Manila, was going to Dubai for a business trip along with two colleagues when tragedy struck past 8 a.m.
As Faustino stepped out to get a pushcart for their luggage, a black Ford Everest suddenly accelerated and crashed into him and several others at the west departure curbside of Terminal 1.
Faustino and a 4-year-old girl, who was there to send off her overseas Filipino worker father, died in the incident.
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“He had bruises on his eyes and feet. His chest and body were pinned against the wall, and he was dragged underneath the vehicle,” his aunt, Marissa Faustino Cruz, 55, told the Inquirer at his wake in Purok 5, Barangay Abulalas of this town on Monday night.
‘Painful’
Cruz said Faustino’s death was “incomprehensible and painful,” especially since he was the family’s breadwinner. He was the second of four children of Teodorico, Cruz’s elder brother.
“No matter what the driver’s reason or explanation is, we just can’t accept what happened,” Cruz said in Filipino.
She said she learned of the news about the Naia accident on social media first before she got a call from a relative that Dearick was among the victims. She, along with Faustino’s father and siblings, rushed to a funeral home in Pasay City to identify his body.
“What remains unclear to us is who declared him dead at the airport. He was still moving. Why wasn’t he taken to a hospital?” Cruz asked.
On Monday morning, the family went to the Pasay City Police to give their affidavits for the filing of appropriate charges at the Pasay City Prosecutor’s Office against the Ford Everest driver.
At the family’s home, surrounded by rice fields and accessible only by a narrow road, mourners—friends, colleagues and relatives from Metro Manila and Bulacan—continued to arrive to pay their respects. Faustino will be buried on Sunday at Paombong Memorial Park.
