15 die as jeepney rams truck in Silay

BACOLOD CITY — Fifteen people, one of them an Army officer and another a policeman, were killed after the passenger jeepney they were riding rammed a stalled truck along the main highway in Silay City, Negros Occidental late Saturday.

Initial reports said only five passengers survived the accident when the jeepney they were riding slammed into the stalled 10-wheeler truck along Hacienda Adela Highway in Barangay Rizal, Silay City, 14 kilometers from here.

The jeepney driver, 22-year-old Peter John Gane, who was among the fatalities, reportedly tried to overtake a car but apparently failed to see the two trucks loaded with sugarcane stalled on the road.

Police identified the others who died on impact as Maj. Nelson Gerona, 39, of the Army’s Civil Military Affairs 303rd Brigade; Police Officer 1 Ariel Salem of the 6th Regional Mobile Group, Divine Padilla, 29; Johanna Bravo and Joebert Esporas.

Other passengers who died while being treated at a hospital were identified as Gloria Lambayon, Roberto Casela, Bernie Bustamante, Edwin Garin, Melanie Comapas, Roselyn Labrador, Joelibert Alovero Villamor and Eduardo Balibalos. Only one fatality remained unidentified.

Initial reports from Silay police said Gane offered the passengers a ride after they could not be accommodated by the last north-bound passenger bus at the terminal.

Leo Justado, a radio operator at the Silay police traffic office, said two sugarcane-laden trucks had earlier collided along the highway but could not immediately be removed because of the heavy cargo.

The stretch of the highway was dark because two lampposts were not working, but there were early-warning devices along the road, he said.

Reports said that the jeepney was going at a fast clip that it failed to see the first stalled truck along the road before it hit the rear end of the vehicle before crumpling underneath.

Justado said the jeepney "looked like it was flattened by a hot iron."

It partially went under the truck and the passengers had to be extricated one by one from the twisted wreckage, he said.

Some of the passengers were initially brought to the Jose Locsin Provincial Hospital in Silay City before they were transferred to other hospitals in Bacolod.

The injured were identified as Grace Irene Ledesma, 22; Ofelia Bacayo, 38; PO1 Jefferson Fugaha, 29, Maricel Catapang, 22 and Jay Padilla, 29, the husband of Divine. All were last reported in critical condition.

The Silay police said charges of multiple homicide through reckless imprudence are being prepared against Reynaldo Centina, owner of the Sta. Lucia Lines passenger jeepney whose vehicles are supposed to ply only within Bacolod. - With Christina Mendez, AP