i-Independent Print Ltd
Rescuers who saved a gold miner trapped for a week in a collapsed tunnel in the northern Philippines have credited their success to pleading for help from a tribal deity.
Their efforts to pull out Felipe Pilmaco finally paid off after rescuers offered a black pig to the tribal god Kabunian, according to a police superintendent Mario Mayam-es, a member of the indigenous Igorot group in Benguet province.
Mr Pilmaco, 33, had been trapped inside the tunnel since 2 August. He survived on food, oxygen and a mobile phone delivered to him through a galvanised pipe inserted between boulders and mud. The town’s doctor, Lilian Velasco, said Mr Pilmaco was fine except for dehydration, minor cuts and an eye infection.
Mr Pilmaco, who is a Roman Catholic, said he is not an Igorot, but believes in the power of the ritual due to his rescue.
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