Bayan patroller Alain Avelino has captured on his camera phone the actual collapse of Sto. Niño Cathedral's belfry during the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that jolted Bohol on Tuesday morning.

I woke up very late on this Holiday Tuesday with a text from a friend in Cebu. “Are you guys OK? That was a bad earthquake. I am scared”, the SMS goes. After reading it, I opened Facebook and saw photos of the damage of the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit Central Visayas at around 8:12 AM. The epicenter is reported to be near Carmen, Bohol. Tranferring to Twitter, #PrayForVisayas is trending.

Earlier this week I was really missing Cebu so bad and my hometown Ormoc City, Leyte. My relatives said they felt the tremor and several aftershocks moments after the big earthquake. There is no big damage in Ormoc, my parents say and they felt the quake for only 3 minutes. Still, that’s a long 3 clock rotations with the ground below you moving. In Cebu however, my friends say they felt Earth danced for around 8 minutes. I couldn’t imagine me being there. Flood gives you time to vacate and you can run away from a fire but you really don’t have a choice with earthquake. You need to stay where you are or hide under a hard object, if there’s any.

It’s a great news no one from the people I know was hurt. But as I scanned the images from Rappler and Yahoo News, I almost cried. Basilica Minore del Sto Nino in Cebu is heavily damaged. This is the church where I first prayed for my dreams to happen. This is where I asked for strength when I was living away from my family and looking for my first job. It’s like my solid rock where I go when I am lonely, or I failed at something, got broken hearted or got no money left. It was just difficult to see your source of strength almost destroyed.

Bohol had always been my choice for being the country’s best province. Closely rivaling with Palawan, maybe, Bohol’s divine tourism attractions from lakes to beaches, man-made forests to hills, caves to snakes and old churches make it the destination to everything. I fell in love with Loboc and Baclayon churches. These religious buildings perhaps are the reasons why the Boholanos maintained a clean and peaceful island province.

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