MANILA, Philippines — Three retired public school teachers on their way home to the Philippines from the United States have been missing for a week after a flight layover in China, a relative said yesterday.
John Florencio Guce said his mother Erlinda Varela Guce, 72, and their relatives Pacita de Guzman, 77 and Josefina Varela Baysic, 70, of San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, were supposed to arrive in Manila on the evening of Aug. 9 after a five-month vacation in New Jersey, USA.
The three women boarded China Eastern Airlines flight MU211 in JFK Airport New York. They were supposed to take a connecting flight to Manila at the Pudong International Airport in Shanghai.
Florence said they waited at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) on Aug. 9 for his mother and their two relatives who were scheduled to arrive at 11 p.m.
But on Aug. 11, Linda Guce used the Viber account of a fellow Filipino passenger identified only as “Alzor” to inform Florence’s cousin Marlon David that their connecting flight was cancelled due to a typhoon that lashed China.
“Magchecheck in daw sila sa hotel. Walang binigay na contact number. Ang sabi nya umuwi na kayo at magchechek in na lang muna kami,” he said, relating that the seniors would check in at a hotel but gave no contact numbers.
Their relatives called Alzor to get updates but told them he was no longer with the three women. Alzor also has no information about the hotel they booked.
On Aug. 12, Florence said they spoke with a representative of China Eastern Airlines in its Makati office who confirmed that the connecting flight from Pudong International Airport in Shanghai to Manila was canceled on Aug. 9.
He said a family friend went to China Eastern Airlines’ Shanghai office on Saturday but he was told that flight MU211 did not land at the Shanghai airport, but at the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in Hubei, China.
The airline office in Shanghai showed that the three women booked a flight to Shanghai from Hubei, but they had no information whether or not they actually got on the flight.
Djoanna Varela, niece of the missing persons, recalled that her cousin Michael Anthony David, who works in Singapore, sent a WhatsApp message to his brother Marlon about the details he got from a friend in Shanghai about the airplane.
To their surprise, Djoanna said Michael Anthony’s friend was informed by the China Eastern Shanghai office that there was no hotel booking record for the three passengers.