Negros couple in Myanmar quake confirmed dead
BACOLOD CITY—The bodies of a music teacher and his wife from Negros Oriental, who went missing following a magnitude 7.7 earthquake that hit Myanmar on March 28, have been found and were cremated.
The decomposing bodies of Edsil Jess Adalid, 34, and his wife Alexis Gale, 25, were found on a stretcher in a morgue in Myanmar days after the quake, according to Edsil’s mother Hermosila Adalid, a university teacher in Bais City, Negros Oriental.
“When they were found, they were hugging each other as if my son was protecting his wife but their bodies were already deformed. It seems they died on the spot,” Hermosila said in a phone interview on Sunday.
“They were already in a state of advanced decomposition,” she added.
Their bodies were about to be included in a mass cremation along with other bodies at the morgue when they were found.
Hermosila said DNA samples from her son and his wife were taken and a group called Samaritan’s Purse had them cremated and kept their ashes in their custody.
The DNA tests were conducted on April 15 and the positive results were released by the National Bureau of Investigation on May 2.
Hermosila said her family was informed that the DNA samples were positive to be that of her son and his wife on May 3.
“They did not inform us before releasing it to the media. They apologized,” she said.
The ashes are at the Philippine Embassy in Yangon. Hermosila’s family will be able to bring them home as soon as the death certificates and other papers are completed.
For more than a month, Hermosila said she has been crying, hoping that they were still alive.
Now, her prayers were that she would be able to accept what happened and to understand God’s purpose and message.
The couple left the Philippines in 2023—Edsil to teach music and Alexis Gale to teach information and communications technology at the Mandalay International School of Acumen in Mandalay, the second-largest city in Myanmar after Yangon.
