COL. SALVADOR “Buddy” TURARAY,
Dental Service (Retired)

JUNE 15, 1950 – MARCH 9, 2026

By J. Irving

I know he was sick, but his death overcame me with paralyzing disbelief. We were not done yet, I went to him to tell my predicament as a fellow Daeteño – “nagsumbong ako saiya!”

Buddy and I were childhood acquaintances in Daet. He was six years older than me, celebrating our birthdays a day apart. We met only again, as Army officers, at Jolo in 1980, the year that I graduated from PMA. So, I started calling him “Sir Bading” (no pun intended). He was very macho, who is good with his Cal. 45 pistol and frequently winning in speed-shoot competitions. Whenever he sees me on mission in downtown Jolo, hanging on a full-packed jeepney, he does not show he knows me so that my cover would not be exposed. Only our eyes would meet and talk. Everybody knows him in the area to be a military dentist. Sir Bading was able to follow my career – my constant gunbattles at Indanan and Mount Tumatangis, surviving a nighttime vehicular ambush and the traumatic Pata massacre of my battalion, with the rebels killing my battalion commander (battcom) and 118 of my companions. The story about the massacre that initially went around blamed higher headquarters in assigning a dentist as battcom. There was a time after publishing already my book “A Time to Heal – Bloodbath at Pata Island” that I went to Sir Bading to ask him, if my battcom was really a dentist? Sir Bading confirmed that my battcom was NOT in their Dental Service roster (meaning: my battcom is a full-blooded infantryman in the Infantry roster, with a college degree in Dentistry).

Going back about my problem, this was the story I confided with him –  starting by saying, “If you are in my place what would you do?”

My mother gave away a piece of land along Salcedo Street, beside the Daet River—not for profit, not for recognition, but out of concern for the town. She wanted to spare the river from being turned into a place where animals were slaughtered. It was her quiet act of sacrifice, with one simple and widely understood condition: that the land would be returned to her once it was no longer used as a slaughterhouse.

Everyone in Daet knew this.

In 2002, the slaughterhouse was moved elsewhere. But instead of returning the land, the Barangay took it and began building their hall on it—as if my mother’s generosity had no conditions, as if her sacrifice no longer mattered.

Already aging and with little strength left, my mother fought back. She filed a case to cancel the Deed of Donation against the mayor and the Barangay captain at the time. She endured years of legal struggle—long, exhausting years that took a toll on her. In 2018, she finally won.

But she never lived to see that victory.

She passed away before the decision of RTC Branch 39 could even reach her hands. After everything she endured, she was denied even that small moment of justice.

I thought it was over. My whole family thought she could finally rest.

But it wasn’t.

A lady prosecutor—armed with government resources and authority—filed a case for eminent domain and managed to secure a writ of possession, despite the fact that the same RTC had already denied the imminent domain case. Undeterred, she elevated it to the Court of Appeals, where it now remains pending.

While the government pays for her salary and legal machinery, we—my mother’s children—are left to shoulder the burden ourselves, paying a private lawyer out of our own modest means and pensions. It feels like an unequal fight, one that never ends. If we win, the lady has still the Supreme Court to contend. Her strategy of wearing us out of money is working.

All the sacrifices my mother made, all the years she spent fighting for what was right, now seem to be slipping away.

She lies buried in the Daet cemetery, beside my father and my three brothers. She spent her entire life giving to her hometown—yet she never even had a home of her own there in the end.

And now, we are left asking: after everything she gave, is this all that remains?

Sir Bading said, your oppressors thought they can easily do this thing to your mother, without repercussions, by not knowing you exist. Kalma ka lang Mate!

He has his own land problem in Basud, about 5 hectares to recover. He was also planning to sell his 400 sqm at Bagong Bayan. He was going to see a former provincial assessor, who could help him. He asked me to go with him … but in his last voice message telling me to go and look for his friend Omar for a peaceful resolution!

Rest in peace Sir Bading …