18 Filipinos return home, recount ordeal with militants

07.01.2008

Eighteen Filipino seamen, who twice survived militant attacks in Nigeria, arrived in batches in Manila over the weekend, each bearing stories of their harrowing ordeal in the oil-rich state.

Of the survivors, 12 seamen, Simeon Avilla, Edgar Ballesteros, Alvin Jovellano, Nino Luengas, Melchor Malana, Ronald Padasas, James Panaguiton, Jozane Ponce, William Prosia, Elmer Temblor, Frankie Viacrucis and Alfonso Zarate, arrived at 10:10 a.m. on Sunday on a KLM flight.

Before midnight on Saturday, six of their co-workers, Nestor Barba, Cesar Guadalupe, Pancho Lagnutan, Richard Peniano, Tomas Obial and Manuel Tabang, returned home aboard an Emirates plane.

The crew of 19 Filipinos and their captain were on board the tanker M/T Keno, then docked at Nigeria’s main oil industry center of Port Harcourt, when militants attacked at dawn on Dec. 19. An explosion sparked a blaze that quickly spread because of the tanker’s load of oil.

“I did not see the attackers. All I saw was the huge blaze. That was at dawn of Dec. 19 and our co-workers on duty woke us up because of the fire,” said Ballesteros, 37, the ship’s third engineer.