Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda wrote an emotional Facebook post Friday morning, Feb. 24 regarding the ongoing retrieval of the remains of the passengers of the crashed Cessna plane in the province.
In the post, Salceda apologized for the failure to retrieve the bodies, even as he attested to the sheer effort shown by the local responders amid the tragedy.
"The crash site ( unstable ground, soil/rocks errosion, elevation/ inclination) dictates that the retrieval operation should apply technical rope rescue such as different anchoring system, hoisting/lowering techniques ,hauling,lifelines etc.," he wrote.
"But the hardest is the weather condition most of the time zero visibility," admitted Salceda, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means.
"Pasensya n Po kung di nakuha kahpon my mga bagay bagay n it's beyond their control hopefully di n mg zero visibility pra mkuha n ho cla at maibalik s kanilang pamilya (I apologize if the bodies weren't retrieved yesterday there are some things that are beyond their control hopefully it will no longer be zero visibility so that they can be recovered and returned to their families)," he added.
The former three-term Albay governor further said: "We cannot question the dedication and determination of our responders sadyang highly technical rescue services lng tong incident case na to.salamat ho (it's just that this incident requires highly technical rescue services. Thank you)."
Albay takes pride in its rescue and recovery personnel, having been honed and hardened by countless response operations from disasters like the eruption of Mayon Volcano.
Captain Rufino James Crisostomo Jr., Joel Martin, Simon Chipperfield, and Karthi Santhanam were on board the Cessna plane when it reportedly crashed Saturday morning, Feb. 18. It took off from Bicol International Airport and was en route to Manila.