Where there’s life, there’s love – even after death
February 16, 2003 | 12:00am
Tomas Carlo Blanco III was happily married to his beautiful wife, Maria Regina, with whom he had a son, Thomas Karlo IV, one-year-and-four-months old. The couple were both 21. They were wed only the previous year at Saint Vincent’s Church on Naguilian Road. Regie, whose family migrated from Manila to Baguio when she was a high school sophomore, had met Tom during her college years at Saint Louis University. To relatives and friends, their romance was storybook-ideal.
July 16, 1990, the feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, was a pleasantly sunny day in Baguio City. Tom was then project manager for Saint Louis University’s EISSIF (Extension Institute for Small-Scale Industries Foundation, Inc.) and an editor of the quarterly EISSIF Newsletter. He was participating, in both capacities, in a four-day Financial Management Workshop sponsored by USAID at Hotel Nevada.
Tom left the workshop site for Saint Louis University that afternoon, only to come back with copies of their newsletter for distribution to his co-participants. The double earthquake struck after he entered the building.
Tom was one of many casualties. A rescue team comprised of Philippine Military Academy (PMA) cadets were able to retrieve his body only six days later. A concrete beam had fallen over his forehead and had completely smashed his face. For Tom, death was instantaneous. He now lies buried, in a sealed coffin, at Everlasting Memorial Park.
The EISSIF Newsletter honored Tom with a supplement in their April-June issue bearing the following statement in his memory: "At the time the quake struck the City of Baguio last July 16, this issue of the SLU EISSIF newsletter was on its way to the press. It was at this point that the ‘Editor of Editors’ decided that this paper’s editor, Tomas Carlo N. Blanco III, should write 30."
Gina Santos, a member of Outpath, the Spirit Questors’ chapter in Baguio City and a former professor at Saint Louis University, remembers Tom and his EISSIF colleague Tito Bayoyo, who, like Tom, was attending the same workshop. Tito also perished during the earthquake. Gina remembers teasing him about his remaining single – he was five or six years older than Tom at the time. Gina claims that, after the disaster, Tito once visited her in a dream. She saw him as peaceful and smiling – a sign that he had already "moved on" – and he said to her, "Look, ma’am, I didn’t get to marry after all."
At the same, TV journalist Ces Drilon asked me to help her put together a "tele-portrait" of a spirit that could be featured on her weekly program, ABS-CBN’s Pipol. I asked one of our hosts, Lisa Araneta, a businesswoman and a tenant of Nevada Square, if she could assist us, and whether she knew of a relative of any of the victims residing in Baguio. Lisa was able to locate Nieves N. Blanco, known as Eppie – Tom’s eldest sister. When we suggested to her doing a "tele-portrait" of her brother, she accepted this without batting an eyelash.
We scheduled a psychometry session, a regression and a spirit quest on the morning of October 27. The Spirit Questors, Ces and her TV crew, and members of Tom’s family met up at the Atenara Café and Museum Shop. It was there that we met Tom’s sister Eppie, his wife Regie, and his son Arlo, now a freshman student at the SLU Boys High School.
Arlo expressed sadness that his father had passed away and that he never got to know him. He dreams about his dad often and receives messages from him in these dreams. He admitted that there are times when he feels anger and I encouraged him to channel this into creative ways.
That afternoon, music they were playing on a machine abruptly stopped and resumed playing only a few minutes after, as though Tom were asserting his presence to them. Later that night, despite sleeping under thick blankets and comforters, they were all shivering and "feeling very cold."
Regie explained, "After all these years, the memories just started coming back." Regie never fell in love with another man since Tom’s demise and has never considered remarrying and still refers to Tom as "my husband." Nonetheless, after the tragic incident, Regie decided to dispose of Tom’s personal effects and clothes. "I could not stand seeing them," she said. "It broke my heart again and again whenever I smelled his clothes."
Because Regie had disposed of these things, all we had to go on were Tom’s photos and his wedding ring for our pyschometry and regression sessions.
The Questors often do psychometry in connection with questing. Psychometry is the technique of obtaining information by holding onto an object in order to access memory, emotions, the present location, the present situation, or a sequence of events related to the owner, or the previous owner, of the object.
Elo selected a 2x2 photo of Tom, Raven, a snapshot of his coffin. I placed Tom’s wedding ring in Ces’s left palm.
I led the group through a guided visualization in order to bring them to a relaxed mental and emotional state. I asked Ces to focus on the wedding ring in her left palm and free-associate any mental or emotional images in her mind. She was able to determine that Tom had a jolly personality. She saw a fleeting image of Tom with mussed-up hair. She also picked up the image of sheets of writing paper; Eppie later affirmed that Tom enjoyed writing so much that he frequently had writing paper around the house. Elo spontaneously described the occurrence of the first big wave of the earthquake, and saw Tom running and searching for his eyeglasses, which had fallen to the floor. Raven received blurred images of Tom, Regie and Arlo. "I see Tom. He’s all by himself. His features are ‘faded,’ it’s like he’s far away." Then: "I see his wife, but the image is ‘faded,’ too. She’s dressed in a duster." And: "Now I see his son, but he’s a lot younger than he is today. I feel like crying." Like the previous images, that of Arlo was also "faded." Raven later revealed to me that the latter two images she received were from "the funeral and after," since she had chosen to work on the coffin snapshot.
Unlike psychometry, regression is an activity that I seldom conduct, perhaps because it is, basically, time-consuming, and requires isolation and greater concentration. In this particular situation there was the risk of Ces and the Questors being overly conscious of the TV camera and boom microphone roving round us. I nonetheless chose to push through with the activity and see what kind of information we would gain.
Regression is a form of hypnosis, or autosuggestion. It is usually employed to access deep-seated childhood memories, repressed impulses, urges and emotions, and past-life glimpses or visitations. It can also be employed for astral traveling in time and place, and it is therefore also useful in fulfilling the objectives of spirit questing.
I led Ces, Elo and Raven through another guided visualization. I joined their hands on top of the table. I asked them to visualize stepping out of their bodies and following me through the door of the café out into the open square. I asked them to visualize that they were no longer in Nevada Square but at the old Hotel Nevada. I described to them the façade of the old hotel based on previous photos we had been shown. I then asked the three of them to go inside the hotel and look for Tom.
Ces could see nothing but "thick darkness" and afterwards complained of "heavy pressure" on her forehead. After this, she saw "a bright, violet light," which I interpreted to mean that Tom, through Ces, was indicating to us that he had already "moved on."
Elo and Raven, on the other hand, were able to visualize themselves going inside the hotel. I asked them to describe their surroundings. I asked them whether they could see Tom. They replied in the affirmative. I asked them whether they could see each other, and Ces as well. Again, they replied in the affirmative. They described Ces as wearing what she was actually wearing during the videotaping, including the black, crocheted mackintosh that she had chosen to wear for this part of the episode. Raven said, "We are in the lobby. I see Ces standing close to Tom. I see another man shaking her hand. I think that it’s one of her spirit guides."
Elo saw Tom go inside the workshop venue and write on a pad of paper. Tom then stepped out and went back to the lobby. From Raven: "I see him in a light blue, almost white, shirt. The cuffs are folded back. He’s leaning on what looks like the front desk. He’s talking to a man. He’s laughing and telling this man a funny story. He’s writing something on a napkin and he’s showing it to the man. They’re both laughing now."
From the very beginning, all channels concurred that Tom was "not in suffering." Regie had had a dream about Tom in which she asked him why he had to leave her that early, especially since she was still dependent on him. Tom "just smiled" at her in this dream. Raven said, "He is peaceful already. He isn’t earthbound. He is happy. He doesn’t want his family to be sad anymore." Through Elo, Tom addressed his family: "Tapos na ang grief time." ("Grief time is over.") He wanted his family to experience "only happy moments."
Elo led the family members through a round of emotional truth for Tom. Regie remembered that the last time she saw Tom alive was at home – he was telling her about a pair of rubber shoes that he had always wanted and that he was saving up for.
Tom replied through Elo’s Tagalog, "Don’t worry, don’t cry for me. I will always be here, I will always be your guide."
Eppie narrated to Tom how Regie was still breast-feeding Arlo at the time of Tom’s death. "The (PMA) cadets did their best to get your body out of the hotel. They knew it was your birthday. They wanted this to be their gift to you–to take your body home that day." She added, also through her tears, "They didn’t want me to see you. They covered your face with your jacket. I saw only your toes." She further narrated that, on that day, July 22, Tom’s 22nd birthday, after the cadets took his body out, they laid it on the ground and gathered round it and sang, Happy Birthday. "After that, I had to go to the hardware store to order wood and tin to have your sealed coffin made," Eppie related. "When the owner learned what I needed them for, he gave them to me for free because, he said, his son was a friend of yours."
Elo then asked Tom for any other messages for his family, particularly his son. He merely replied, "I’m here," and, "I have said everything," referring to Arlo’s dreams. Elo then picked up the scent of cologne and had a vision of Tom spraying his clothes with cologne. Regie and Eppie affirmed that, indeed, Tom had been very fond of wearing cologne.
Raven attested that Tom "wants a party thrown for him on Christmas, with all his family and friends." Ces and Elo picked this up at well. Elo said, "He’s suggesting a celebration with his whole family, he wants them to make preparations for this celebration. He’s saying, ‘I will be there to celebrate with you,’ and he wants this to be on Christmas Day." Ces accessed a vision of a huge table laden with lots of food, pork barbecue and pancit (noodles) in particular. Eppie gasped and affirmed that these were Tom’s favorite party dishes.
The Spirit Questors left Baguio City at 4:30 p.m. that day. I watched the golden sun slowly descending on the serene landscape through the window of Lisa’s Exalta, wondering what I would be doing next and what case the Questors would be working on.
Ces aired her Pipol episode on the Hotel Nevada quests and the "tele-portrait" of Tom Blanco on October 29, 2002. As for my Philippine STAR exclusive, here it is in your hands as you are reading it.
It attests that there is life after death – one of the messages that the Spirit Questors impart to all whom they encounter. There is, therefore, also continued hope in that dimension, and continued care-giving, and continued forgiveness, and continued friendship, and the continued blessings of God. For, wherever there is life, there is always love.
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