Julian Elaine

Mang Eddie can’t afford to lose this mint green bunny backpack. The bag was the one used by his 4-year old daughter Juliane Elaine when she was towed by her mother to Ultra for the first anniversary of Wowowee. It was extremely difficult for Mang Eddie to accept the fact that the backpack could be his last memory of his daughter.

Mang Eddie was still in a state of shock when I met him at Arlington Funeral Homes in Pasig City. He was with his wife Aling Myrna to claim the lifeless and battered body of Julian Elaine.

Aling Myrna told me Julian Elaine could have survived the Ultra tragedy. At the height of the stampede, Julian Elaine was whisked off by a good Samaritan to a nearby roof for safety. But seeing her mother being crushed to the ground, Julian Elaine jumped from the roof just to be with her mother. But along with 74 other people, Julian Elaine died.

Among the victims of the stampede, Julian Elaine is the only child. The rest are adults, mostly female with only one man in the list released by Arlington management.

While the rest of the victims wanted to win cash, or a house and lot, or a tricycle, Juliane Elaine’s wish was way simple – to personally meet the show’s host Willie Revillame. But sadly, the girl got her wish only after she died when Revillame viewed the remains of the stampede victims at the morgue of Arlington Pasig.