2 preschoolers drown in South Cotabato irrigation ditch

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Two preschool children drowned in an irrigation dike in Barangay San Vicente in Banga, South Cotabato on Thursday afternoon, October 29.

The three-year-old Jonrey Lalantacon Mertalla and the five-year-old Joana Lalantacon Erami were first seen playing outside of their yard in Purok Malipayon in Barangay San Vicente and disappeared.

Barangay officials and personnel of the Banga Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office told reporters on Friday that the two children had gone unnoticed to an irrigation dike not too distant from their adjoining houses and were, subsequently, found by villagers floating in the water flowing through it downstream, unconscious.

Emergency responders from the Banga local government unit and firemen from the Bureau of Fire Protection together tried, but failed to revive the two kids.

The nurse Rolly Aquino, chief of the South Cotabato Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, said their provincial governor, Reynaldo Tamayo Jr., will help the marginalized families of the two children facilitate their burial.

Tamayo said they will embark on a massive information campaign to educate his constituents on preventing such an incident in their barangays.

South Cotabato, which has 10 towns and whose capital is Koronadal City, has vast swaths of rice-producing lands crisscrossed by irrigation dikes.