Boat rams log; 10 drowned

COTABATO CITY — Ten Muslim villagers drowned and a dozen others are still missing after an overloarded pumpboat rammed a drifting log and capsized in a murky river connecting this city and Kabuntalan, Maguindanao the other day.

Datu Kulot Dagloc, Kabuntalan’s town administrator, said the pumpboat split into two after hitting the half-submerged log, with its bow darting straight into the deep river in Barangay Montay, a secluded district in Kabuntalan.

Dagloc identified five of the 10 fatalities as Kedtong Dalamban, Lukya Calikud, Mina Taha, Mamalinta Limpi and Annie Gasan, all of Barangay Taviran in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.

Local probers, Dagloc said, are still gathering information on the five still unidentified victims, mostly said to have come from a big kanduli, a traditional thanksgiving ceremony hosted by a local official in Barangay Bagumbayan in Kabuntalan.

"Many others are still missing. Members of the local police force and barangay officials in Kabuntalan are still scouring the spot where the pumpboat capsized," Dagloc said.

Kabuntalan is surrounded by vast marshlands and criss-crossed by rivers springing from densely forested hinterlands in the adjoining Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato provinces.

Some of those still missing, according to Dagloc, are school children. — John Unson