Camarines, Philippines. Now 39 years old, Maritess Maderal had long been waiting for that one chance to again embrace the man who brought her to his home, took care of her for several months and treated her as his own child after she lost her mother and two siblings in a sea tragedy when she was just 14.
The opportunity came 25 years later: Last month, Maderal introduced her youngest daughter Joan to Senator Richard Gordon. Speaking in Filipino as her tears welled up, Maderal told Gordon: “Thank you very much.”
Maderal is one of the 42 survivors from the sinking of the MV Asuncion in December 1985 off Zambales. Gordon then was the mayor of Olongapo.
Gordon brought her and another girl to his home, until Maderal’s father Jose, who also survived the accident, fetched her from Gordon’s house several months later.
That was the last time they saw each other. Maderal was still in sixth grade then. She now has four children, the eldest of whom—17-year-old Joemel—already finished high school but could not get into college because of poverty.
He was scheduled to immediately proceed in the evening to a gathering of regional businessmen in this city, but a local coordinator managed to convince him to drop in at the Milaor Elementary School, where Red Cross volunteers were holding livelihood training for some 200 mothers.
Gordon never expected he would see Maderal there. “What a miracle!” Gordon exclaimed after seeing Maderal. “You were still very young when I last saw you!”
Maderal broke into tears as Gordon embraced her, happy that her long wait was finally over.
Maderal said: “They were very kind. They treated us like their own family.”
Gordon wanted to adopt her, but after eight months, her father Jose arrived to fetch her. Gordon brought them to a bus station and never saw them again—until last Saturday. Gordon said: “This is among the blessings I get in life, that these people survived.”
Maderal also asked Gordon about her friend Lillibeth Acar, whom Gordon proceeded to adopt, stayed in Gordon’s house. The senator sent her to school and she now works as a physical therapist.
Maderal said: “I would always tell my children about him and how he saved me everytime I saw him on TV.”
Gordon gave her his phone numbers with a promise to find a way to help her children go to school and to reconnect her with Lillibeth.
Maderal could not ascertain if she would get another chance to again meet the famous man who once brought her, an ordinary girl, into his home and treated her like his own child.
The one thing she is sure of: Gordon is getting her vote.
Now, there’s a man with a golden heart, and a track record to prove it. That’s Senator Richard Gordon, candidate for president of the Philippines. He certainly deserves to win the elections this year.