Boy, 15 months old, fighting for his life

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – A 15-month-old son of a carpenter is now fighting for his life at a hospital here after being injured in the bomb blast Sunday across the city cathedral.

Jeofrey Sayre and siblings Janissa, 11, and John Ray, 9, were among at least 50 injured when a bomb packed with nails and jagged iron blew up across the cathedral where Archbishop Orlando Quevedo was celebrating Mass.

Carpenter Anacleto Sayre, 32, was planning to treat his wife and children in an eatery across the Immaculate Conception Cathedral after they finished Mass last Sunday.

But moments later, he and his family ended up bloodied and injured.

The blast killed five people.

Sayre’s three children were seriously injured and are currently confined at the Cotabato Regional Medical Center (CRMC), with Jeofrey remaining in critical condition after metal fragments from the improvised explosive device perforated his lungs.

Moro militants are suspected to have detonated the bomb.

“The prognosis is very poor. The child is fighting for his life,” one of the doctors at the hospital told reporters yesterday about the youngest Sayre’s condition, in the presence of Presidential Assistant for Mindanao Jesus Dureza who provided the hospitalized victims with initial cash assistance from Malacañang.

Sayre’s wife Lanie, 30, said they were seated near the main door of the cathedral when the bomb exploded.

Sayre and his wife sustained superficial bruises and managed to bring their children to the hospital at the height of the commotion.

One of those killed in the bombing, 11-year-old Prince Allen Diaz, was felled by shrapnel right where he stood, just steps away from where the Sayres sat.

Diaz is the grandson of a retired provincial journalist, Patricio Diaz Sr., a multi-awarded writer and advocate for the peaceful resolution of the Moro rebellion, regarded by reporters in Central Mindanao as the “patriarch” of the region’s media community.

“I don’t know where to get money for their medication. I’m just a lowly carpenter who doesn’t even have a regular job,” Sayre said in Cebuano.

Sayre’s wife, on the other hand, occasionally washes the clothes of their neighbors for extra income.

But despite the tragedy, they have complete faith and trust in God.

“We have been a very religious family. I don’t question God for giving us this fate,” Sayre said.