Police said the grade schoolers had just come from a picnic at the Sta. Victoria Caves in Ilagan when their jeepney’s brakes malfunctioned, causing the vehicle to ram into the tree in Barangay Alangingan, some five kilometers from the picnic site.
The victims were students of the Barangay Palueg Elementary School in Ilagan.
In another road accident, six hitchhikers, two of them grade schoolers, were killed while nine others were badly injured when a World War II vintage military six-by-six truck loaded with corn lost its brakes while maneuvering a downhill dirt road and plowed through a steep roadside embankment in Upi, Maguindanao the other night.
Probers said the truck, owned by grains trader Alex Peñalosa, was on its way to the Upi town proper when it met the tragedy.
Two of the six fatalities were children, according to officials of Barangay Kabog-Kabog, a corn-producing community in Upi.
Policemen and municipal rescuers said most of the victims died from head injuries and bone fractures they sustained when they jumped off the truck as it sped downhill and plunged into huge boulders.
Upi Mayor Ramon Piang has asked police to investigate the accident and determine the liability of the truck driver who, the victims said, ignored their demand to pull over for them to disembark when they noticed that he was intoxicated. — With John Unson