What PH peacekeepers can look forward to when they come home
Grace Corpuz and Mila Escarcha, wives of Corporal Michael Corpuz and Staff Sargeant Noli Escarcha, with Colonel Roberto Ancan recount their tales while their husbands fought it out against Syrian rebels in Golan heights. AFP Public Affairs Office
MANILA, Philippines – After the ordeal of waiting, Mila Escarcha and Grace Corpuz are only too glad to be welcoming their husbands with hugs, kisses and more.
Mila and Grace are the wives of Staff Sargent Noli Escarcha and Corporal Michael Corpuz, peacekeepers assigned to Position 68 in Golan Heights where they recently fought off Syrian rebels who kidnapped their Fijian counterparts and demanded that they lay down their arms.
“I have no ounce of idea what’s happening to him,” Mila said, adding, “He was not telling us what was really happening there.”
Mila, who has three children with Noli – the eldest at 25-years-old, the middle child 23, and the youngest 18 – said that her husband was just telling them not to worry and all was perfectly well.
“He just told us to calm down,” Mila said. “I did not know that they were in danger until I read and saw the news of the situation.”
Mila said she sent more than a hundred text messages to Noli who was in the middle of the firefight against the Syrian rebels.
Noli managed to read the messages after he and his fellow peacekeepers staged the “greatest escape” Saturday (Manila time) as the Syrian rebels were asleep.
Mila said the P50,000 monthly salary her husband was receiving in his tour of duty as a peacekeeper in strife-torn Syria could not compensate for the anxiety she felt after learning that her husband was engaging the Syrian rebels in a firefight.
“Your salary there, it would not amount to the worry and anxiety that I experienced,” said Mila.
But if Escarcha could not communicate with his wife, Corpuz was the opposite.
Grace said she was not that worried since “my husband was telling me everything that happened”.
Grace, who has a baby girl with Corpuz, said that she knew about the firefight because she could hear gunfire everytime her husband would make a call.
Now that their ordeal was over, both Mila and Grace are looking forward to their husbands’ arrival.
Mila said she would shower Noli with hugs and kisses while Grace wanted to follow their baby girl with a boy from Michael.
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