LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Mr./Ms. Editor,

Greetings of Peace!

I am Dr. Abigail Fernandez-Bautista, 31 years old, a dentist and resident of San Narciso, Zambales. I got married to Mr. Dax Baustista, three days ago at the chapel of San Roque inside the Subic Bay Freeport Zone. I should have been happy and at peace by now that I finally married the man of my dreams. I should have been spending days with him, right now, talking about our future children and planning our lives. But I am not. I am angry. I am in pain.

I have been sleepless the past nights because the memory of what happened to us always comes back to me. And the thought that I and my husband will forever remember this unfortunate event, every single year of our anniversary, brings me great distress and anxiety.

After months of planning and anticipation, we were able to book ourselves and our families and guests a place at Vista Marina Hotel and Resort located at Blk 3 Lot 2, Moonbay Marina Area, Waterfront Road, Subic Bay Freeport Zone. We were so relieved that the hotel has everything we were thinking of to realize a dream wedding that turned catastrophic for us. Vista Marina, through its website and brochure, promised us this:

You've always dreamed about having a beautiful wedding. Make this very special event an unforgettable experience at Vista Marina Hotel & Resort. The resort's picturesque setting at the pool side is truly the ideal place for this memorable occasion. As you work closely with our certified wedding planner, you'll choose from several customized wedding packages and services, which will satisfy your every wish and create the most unforgettable day.

What we never realized was that "memorable experience and unforgettable" day was something that would fill us with so much anger, so much pain. We were wed on May 10, 2008 at 6:30 in the evening. We then proceeded with our relatives and guests to have dinner at around 9 at the wedding banquet of Vista Marina. The wedding program ended at around 11 pm. We returned to our room, 207, and found that our belongings had been suspiciously disarranged. We frantically went over our stuff and found that my husband's laptop was missing. We had been robbed!

When we informed our parents about the incident, we also found out that our relative, Mrs. Butch was crying because her cell phone and her wallet with cash of about P20,000.00, her credit and ATM cards were stolen too. We panicked and got so frightened that this incident happened inside the hotel premises that promised security and comfort to us and our guests. We immediately reported the incidents at the front desk of the hotel lobby. Our frustration and anxiety only got worse when we were coldly treated by the night shift and security supervisor, Mr. Gener Pangan. We never saw alarm nor concern from him.

He acted as if everything that had happened that night was routine procedure to them. He never offered words of assurance that they will do everything to get our belongings back. We were treated with ominous and disturbing silence. They did not call the SBMA police immediately for assistance. We had to wait for three hours for the hotel staff to finish its own "operation" before they called the police in. I don't know what's the SOP in cases of hotel robberies but three hours of wait could not help us think that evidence could have been contaminated especially if done without the presence of the proper authorities.

We also approached the operations manager of the hotel, Mr. Anthony Bacunawa, who, though he was more cooperative, could say nothing more than "sorry" and "I understand your situation." We wanted to talk to the owner of the hotel since the time of the incident but Mr. Bacunawa was insistent that the hotel owner, who is Korean, would not want to talk to us. This was when our suspicion grew and our anger heightened.

We were the aggrieved party, we were the victims of a crime that should not have happened had the security been tight and properly enforced. But it seems that we can only talk to the walls. We were not able to sleep that night mulling over how could this happen to us, and on the night of our wedding. When it was clear that we would not be seeing justice that we deserve, we decided to politely ask some of the hotel guests to check their belongings before they leave fearing that the same things may have happened to them without them knowing it. To our surprise, three hotel patrons, who are not members of our wedding guests, volunteered information that their door was opened by a suspicious woman who also had the same key to their room. The woman exclaimed, "Ay may tao pala." And she briskly left. Also, one of our principal sponsors found out in the morning that their door was ajar when his wife swore that she made sure that she locked the door before she and her children went to bed.

Early in the morning of May 10, we asked assistance from the front desk to help us open the safety vault inside our room because the key given to us could not open it. The receptionist sent one of the bellboys up for assistance but still the vault would not budge. My husband and I decided that we would no longer use the vault. At the time of our discovery of the robberies, we found out that the vault was already open. We wanted to ask the bellboy who brought up a spare key how did this happen. My mother has a vague remembrance of his face so she went to the front desk to ask if the hotel kept I.D. pictures of its staff, Mr. Pangan flatly refused her request saying, "We could not do that because it's administrative policy." When we asked why, he merely shrugged, "We want to protect our employees." I thought we were the ones who needed protection there.

After almost thirteen hours of futile request to the operations manager to let us talk to the owner of the hotel we were ready to leave and settle our accounts. The owner suddenly appeared and went straight to his office. We wanted to talk to him, just to let him know of some of the irregularities that we experienced inside his hotel.

The hotel staff refused our request. They finally yielded when my father-in-law insisted to talk to him. We were made to wait interminably. My father-in-law went directly to the administrative office and politely requested that he be given a few minutes to talk to the owner. A family friend, Bro. Noel Bava, SJ went in with my father-in-law. We were hoping that the Korean owner would be more cooperative and helpful this time. But he was stubborn and refused to take responsibility over the incident. He kept on telling us that it was our fault that our belongings got stolen. And as owners of these belongings, we were the ones responsible for our things. That it was not the responsibility of the hotel to keep an eye on our stuff. That even in our own house, we are not 100% safe. That it is the responsibility of the government of the Philippines to provide security to its citizens after all, this is our country.

When my father-in-law asked for his name, he said no, he is not going to give it. He stood up, called security, told his staff to call the police and take my father-in-law and Bro. Bava out of his office immediately.

It is not really the laptop or the money that we were after. We could easily have them replaced. But the memories that this sad and lamentable incident that happened on the day of my wedding and the fact that it will make its mark on us forever, the refusal of the hotel administration to accept responsibility and pay for it, the shabby treatment that we received from the hotel owner, a Korean, a foreigner doing business on our soil, and staff that would do anything to keep their boss blameless and free of responsibility of the crime done to us—this we could not accept.

We are aghast that such business, whom we have also learned from the Intelligence and Investigation Office of SBMA, had a history of robberies the past months and was requested to put up security cameras and additional locks on their rooms, is allowed to continue operating inside Subic Bay Freeport Zone.

We asked your good office if you could help us inform your readers about this incident so that the same things may not happen to them. We would also appreciate if you could run a follow up article or news story on this.

Thank you very much and God bless.

Respectfully yours,

Dr. Abigail Fernandez-Bautista, DMD