Navy brings cheers to family of soldier guarding Ayungin Shoal

MANILA, Philippines - Verginia Galvan, wife of a Marine deployed in Ayungin Shoal off Palawan, felt anxiety after being informed that Navy personnel would visit her house in Taguig last Dec. 23.

Her husband Edwin is one of the soldiers assigned in BRP Sierra Madre, the dilapidated ship that symbolizes Philippine sovereignty in the area, which is being claimed by a muscle-flexing China.

While her husband is not deployed in a battle zone in Sulu or Basilan, Verginia knows that soldiers who visit their comrades’ homes are often harbingers of bad news - one that would forever change the lives of families whose only consolation is the thought that their loved one was a hero. Even those who are into war movies are aware of that.

A nervous and teary-eyed Verginia waited for the soldiers, thinking that something bad had happened to her husband.

The heavy traffic congestion – an annoyance Navy men are not exempted from – prolonged Verginia’s agony. It took more than two hours before the soldiers from Fort Bonifacio, Taguig reached the Galvan residence in Signal Village in the same city.

 Fortunately, it wasn’t always like the movies. Verginia’s anxiety turned into joy after seeing that the Navy personnel were just there to bring them gifts as a gesture of appreciation to her husband’s sacrifices.

The soldiers, led by Navy Civil-Military Operations Group chief Col. Edgard Arevalo, smiled as they handed over a basket of goods and small gifts to Verginia and her three children.

“The amount spent for goods were part of the amount saved by the civil-military operations group when it toned-down the unit Christmas Party and held only a salo-salo or fellowship,” Arevalo said.

“(There will be) similar gestures for the families in the different parts of the country whose fathers of whose brothers are assigned in Ayungin Shoal,” he added.

Arevalo said he had a cordial conversation with Verginia about the difficulties of being a soldier’s wife.

The conversation, which was occasionally interrupted by her youngest son Edwin Jr. asking for some coins, dwelt on experiences like being asked by a son why they were not fetching his father in the airport this Christmas and  raising her children alone.

“She (Verginia) was always apprehensive of the reality that her man’s life is in constant danger,” Arevalo said.

The military officer also spoke to the children, who sorely missed their father’s presence during Christmas.

Sherwin, the eldest of the Galvan children, is in college and wants to be either a seafarer or a soldier. The second, Shane, wants to take up tourism while Edwin Jr., dreams of becoming either an engineer or architect.

“The last thing I want is to be handed a Philippine flag (a gesture of last respects to the next of kin of military personnel who die in line of duty),” Verginia told Arevalo. â€œI don't want a flag given to me. I can buy a flag, myself.”

Arevalo said the military values the sacrifices that the soldiers and their families bear in the name of duty.

“We care for the families who were ‘fatherless’ or ‘brotherless’ this Christmas and New Year (because of the need to man) our isolated and distant posts within our maritime domain,” he said.