Proud of ‘little brother’

Ria Bautista, a songwriter and drummer/vocalist with the pop rock band Paramita, was on the phone talking about her “little brother” who died in the Lionair, Inc. jet explosion on the NAIA runway last Sunday. Dr. Nicko Bautista, 33, was among eight passengers in the plane that caught fire.

“I’ll always remember him as my little brother,” said Ria yesterday. “We never really talked about his work. But I knew what he was up against as a frontliner in the fight against coronavirus. I knew he was on regular duty at the Mandaluyong City Medical Center where he has worked over the last four years. In his Facebook posts, he wrote about the lack of equipment and support that frontliners had to cope with in treating coronavirus patients.”

After the tragedy, Ria said she found out about how her brother went out of his way to help financially-strapped patients. “It’s only now that I’m hearing stories from his patients,” she said. “If a patient couldn’t pay the hospital bills, he would pick up the tab or find sponsors to take care of the expenses. It wasn’t his call to ask donors for help but he did it for his patients. That’s the kind of guy he was. I’m so proud of him.”

Ria said news of Nicko’s death left her in shock. “I saw the news online but never imagined Nicko was in the plane,” she said. “A few minutes later, friends started texting and my heart dropped. Then, my sister Nicki called, crying. It was surreal. I last saw Nicko a few months ago. We didn’t see each other too often because of his work and he lived in Mandaluyong and I live in Las Piñas. We chatted last week about getting together and hanging out. Nicko wasn’t a homebody. He was always on the go. He loved to travel, sometimes with friends and sometimes, even alone. He loved the beach. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

Nicko, a PLM graduate in 2014, lived with his parents Nicandro Sr., an accountant, and Lorina and sister Nicki, a doctor and frontliner in Sta. Ana. “I went to the Lionair hangar at about midnight after the accident that happened around 8 p.m.,” said Ria. “They brought Nicko to the Rizal Funeral Homes in Pasay. He was cremated last Tuesday and brought home.”

Ria said it wasn’t Nicko’s first job with Lionair. “From what I know, he was on-call with Lionair,” she said. “I’m told that he was on medical evacuation missions with Lionair before, both domestic and international. My little brother always made himself available to those who needed medical care, regardless of whether they had the capacity to pay or not.”

Nicko was the doctor assigned to accompany a patient John Hurst on the flight to Haneda Airport. With Hurst in the plane was his wife Marilyn de Jesus. The Hursts flew from Canada, where they live, to the Philippines to attend the wedding of Marilyn’s daughter Isabel Perez de Tagle to Quinten Warren in Calatagan last Feb. 15.

In a Facebook post, Isabel set the facts straight on the background of her mother and stepfather. “Just want to clarify that the plane that caught fire in NAIA didn’t have any medical supplies for distribution,” she said. “The flight was supposed to be on its way to Japan as it was a medical evacuation for a Canadian citizen (Hurst). Some news reported that the Canadian and American citizens (on board) were overstaying aliens. They were not. The patient was confined in a private hospital for almost three weeks due to GBS (Guillain Barre Syndrome). They were not COVID-19 patients and not VIPs. They were supposed to go home to Canada as the patient just got discharged and got clearance to fly. A medical team was on board the flight because it was a medical evacuation. They were on their way to Japan for their connecting flight to Canada.”

Isbael, a UST graduate and a registered nurse at Valley Medical Center in Renton, Washington, said Hurst had a viral illness that triggered the rare auto-immune response. “The viral illness was most likely a common gastro virus not coronavirus,” she said. “The Guillain Barre tricks your cells into attacking your own cells. So he was losing his motor function and was limited to Makati Med ICU for management of symptoms. He was already doing better and he just wanted to go back to Canada to complete his treatment and be close to family. So his children arranged for a medevac flight. His Canadian medical insurance contracted Lionair for the Philippines to Japan leg then a connecting flight to Canada. He wasn’t a VIP, just someone who wanted to go home to his family and be with them with his new diagnosis. They weren’t overstaying aliens. They had an active life in Canada.”