My "Scary" Valentine

T'was Valentine 2005. My wife decided a simple celebration- a movie date at Glorietta 4 (Ayala Center, Makati); the title of the movie I could not now recall.

I left our plant office a little before 5 for a 1 to 1 1/2 hour drive to Makati. We had hoped to catch an early evening screening time so we still can have a late dinner when the dining crowds thin out. A little past 6 then I was already traversing EDSA Magallanes.

The shortest route would have been to go left to Pasay Road (now Arnaiz Ave) where just a few meters away is the Park Square 1 parking area. Back then however, from 4 to 9pm, traffic here was one way going out to EDSA. So I went straight to EDSA Ayala, made a U turn and turned right on a strip between Dusit Hotel and SM Makati. I passed by a line of buses cramped on MMDA's fence wall, waiting for passengers coming from the back of SM Makati, below the Ayala MRT station. Just as I was about to turn right, some 30 meters away, I heard a very loud deafening explosion. For a moment, I came to an abrupt brake. At that first moment, I thought my tires blew up but I sensed nothing abnormal about the car.

Just then, I saw people running towards the direction of the buses. I then decided to immediately drive away and went up straight to the nearby parking area at Park Square1. Up there, at every floor people were running, cars lining up for exit. I still didn't know what was happening. When I looked down, I was surprised to see streams of people crowding the roads, rushing to the Glorietta malls exits while security guards started to close down the entrances to the malls. The guard at the parking area told me, a bomb exploded at MRT station. By then, I knew my wife was already inside the mall, perhaps at the cinema lobby. I frantically called her to stay where she was while running and rushing past the guards towards the entrance of the mall. I thought I should get inside before they completely close down the mall.

I did not panic, nor at that time felt scared. Somehow, I have borne witness to several bombings when I was still in Iligan City and bomb threats then were not strange. From the food court overlooking the MRT station and the Intercon Hotel, we could see police cordoning off the area, people were shooed away from the site and traffic came to a standstill in that area. There was still no news about the extent and other details. Inside, the shows went on so we still went to our movie date.

After the show, we went towards the direction of Landmark. At a corner store across Shangri-La Makati, we saw people converging, watching TV. Curious, we joined the group, only to find out that it was a news coverage of the bombing.We were aghast to see the damage brought by the bombing. It was no ordinary bombing. It intended to really kill.

The next day, it was all over the news. It was horrible to see the remains of the bus and terrifying to imagine what became of the passengers inside. A car that passed by the bus at the time the bomb exploded was also severely damaged. It could have been me. I missed it by a hairline, thank God. I was at the same spot just 2 or 3 seconds earlier.

It was a terrorist attack, the investigators concluded. A lovely Valentine evening turned bloody.