On May 1, Jerry Tuazon was driving his wife, eight-year-old son and six others to a Christian youth camp in Pangasinan, more than 200km north of Manila, when they stopped briefly at a petrol station along the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway.
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The next thing he remembered was waking up in a hospital bed.
“I thought I was dreaming. I said, ‘God, please wake me up from this dream. This has gone far too long, this is not where I’m supposed to be,’” he told This Week in Asia.
Tuazon was the only survivor in his group of nine. A multiple car pile-up claimed 10 lives, including his wife and child, and left 40 others injured.
“I had a bad feeling in my gut but I could not explain why,” said Jedidiah Castor Miral, a cousin of Tuazon’s wife. “It wasn’t until my sister called in hysterics, saying ‘They’re all gone’.”
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“At first, we could not believe the news and we had asked why it happened, although it later dawned on us, ‘Who are we to question God’s will?’” Miral said.
The tragedy has renewed scrutiny of the Philippines’ crumbling road safety standards, as public outrage mounts over a spate of deadly accidents blamed on systemic failures – spanning weak law enforcement, unregulated driver practices and corruption in infrastructure and licensing. Experts say these issues reflect long-standing governance lapses that put millions of Filipinos at risk daily.