'Pilot, owner of light plane had a big heart'

MANILA, Philippines - Cebu City Traffic Operations Management (CITOM) chief Sylvan Jack Jakosalem only has good things to say about Capt. Jessup Bahinting, the pilot and owner of the light plane that crashed off Masbate last Saturday.

“He had a big heart.”

Jakosalem, also a pilot, has been a friend of Bahinting since the 1990s when he was still a flight student. Many times, Bahinting would lend his plane for public service and allowed Jakosalem to watch the city’s traffic situation.

“At one time, I rode his plane to get a bird’s eye view of a fire downtown a few years back. It would cost me at least P3,000 per hour for that flight,” he said.

Bahinting was just a good person, and the latest proof of that was last Wednesday, when he again dispatched his Cessna plane to get four vials of anti-venom in Camiguin.

Bahinting owned Aviatour, a flight school based in Mactan.

“He was in Manila at that time when I called. I asked him if he had a flight to Camiguin that day, he said none. But when I told him that someone was bitten by a Cobra and had to be given an anti-venom shot, he immediately sent one of his planes,” said Jakosalem.

“That special flight would have cost at least P15,000, and because of his actions, the vials arrived in time to save the life of Ronald Aventurado, a zookeeper who was bitten by a Cobra last Aug. 14,” Jakosalem recalled.

As of yesterday afternoon, Aventurado was recuperating at the Cebu City Medical Center.

Jakosalem said Camiguin Gov. Jurdin Jesus Romualdo also had good things to say about Bahinting.

The pilot had helped transport boxes of medicine many times for the province for free, Romualdo said.

In next year’s celebration of Cebu City’s Charter Day, Jakosalem said he would push for the giving of a Bahinting lifesaver award. He said Mayor Michael Rama had reportedly agreed, but this still has to be approved by the city council.

With the search and rescue operations still underway, Jakosalem, who survived a crash in the late ‘80s, hoped that Bahinting and the rest of the missing passengers are still alive.