Surigao City folk welcome Barbers home

SURIGAO CITY — A hero’s welcome< greeted the arrival here of the remains of former senator Robert Barbers yesterday afternoon, with thousands of Surigaonons standing along the city streets despite the rain for a last glimpse of the man they described as a "great leader" whom they will surely miss.

Barbers’ remains, accompanied by his loyal friends and relatives, arrived on board a Philippine Air Force (PAF) C-130 cargo plane at 1:45 p.m. as hundreds of supporters waited in and outside the Surigao airport in Barangay Luna, four kilometers from the city.

Surigao del Norte Gov. Robert Lyndon Barbers, one of Barbers’ sons, Surigao City Mayor Alfonso Casurra and local city and provincial officials came to bid farewell to the former senator.

But other provincial and top Caraga local officials who earlier said they would be at the airport were nowhere to be found.

Local opposition leaders in Surigao also failed to show up, though they extended their condolences to the Barbers family through emissaries.

The former senator’s wife, Virginia, their daughter and sons Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers and Philippine tourism Authority (PTA) president Robert Dean Barbers and other close relatives and friends also arrived on board another aircraft.

The former senator’s remains will be flown back to Manila aboard the same PAF C-130 tomorrow.

Upon arrival, an impromptu funeral march ensued, with convoys of private and government-owned vehicles slowly moving along as somber escorts to the late senator through the major thoroughfares of Surigao City, generating two hours of traffic jams.

Barbers’ remains were finally brought to the Surigao del Norte Convention Center at the Capitol compound here, where the public was given a chance to say farewell to a leader who served Surigao City, the province of Surigao del Norte and the rest of the country for nearly two decades.

"Surigao del Norte has really lost a great leader, we may have had leaders in the past but I would not say that their stature is the same as Bobby Barbers," Casurra told The STAR. "We consider him really a great leader. Great in the sense that he was able to give pride to the City of Surigao and the Surigaonons are proud of him also."

Casurra said many Surigaonons still marvel at how a local leader like Barbers, who died at age 61, rose on the national stage from his beginnings as a beat policeman to become congressman, secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Governments (DILG) during the Ramos administration, to his final post as senator of the Republic of the Philippines.