In Orion, a school bus carrying students of the Bataan Montessori School smashed into a passenger jeepney in Barangay General Lim, killing jeepney driver Joel Ranan on the spot.
Injured were two of the jeepney passengers and four of the students.
In Dinalupihan, meanwhile, a speeding ambulance rammed into a tricycle along the MacArthur Highway in Barangay Luakan, killing the tricycle driver, Dean Atrero, and injuring his two passengers. — Raffy Viray
Pedro Roque Jr., agent-in-charge of the NBI Cabanatuan district office, said his men are now tracking down Army Sgt. Fernando Padre, a former member of the 7th Infantry Division based in Palayan City who has gone AWOL (absent without official leave).
NBI director Reynaldo Wycoco ordered the manhunt after Padre eluded arrest during a raid on his house last Aug. 18.
Padre managed to escape after he shot it out with the NBI agents who subsequently seized a quantity of shabu, a water pipe, two tooters, four disposable lighters, a grenade, 20 live bullets for a caliber 5.56-mm pistol and an Armalite rifle in his house.
— Manny Galvez
Senior Superintendent Francisco Don Montenegro, Batangas police director, said municipal treasurer Leonila Malina, 56, together with disbursing officer Zenaida Gonzales, casual employee May Castillo and driver Wilfredo Rosales Jr., was cruising the national highway in Barangay Luntal in Tuy town when the robbers, who were riding an unlicensed white car, blocked their Toyota Hi-Lux pick-up and announced the holdup.
The robbers took the P434,903 payroll, P8,000 in market fees collected, their P37,000 personal money and cellular phones, and important documents, and then ordered them to drive to a sugarcane plantation where two other armed men aboard a motorcycle were waiting. — Arnell Ozaeta
The Mindanao Cross, a local weekly newspaper of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate congregation, said the chieftains of the Aromanon, Manobo, Bagobo, Atah, Uboh and B’laan tribes have passed a manifesto calling on the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to focus attention on the illegal cutting of trees in a watershed in Kabacan, North Cotabato, where many of their people dwell.
The Mindanao Cross quoted Datu Apoh Maninguit, chairman of North Cotabato’s Federation of Tribal Councils, as saying that the cutting of trees in Barangay Pisan, a known ancestral land of the Manobos, started in 2001.
If declared a "protected area," Maninguit said it would be easy for them to prevent cutting of trees in the watershed.
Two of the illegal loggers in Barangay Pisan are former soldiers, he said. — John Unson
Dr. Elmo Tomada, the DOH’s provincial team leader, lamented that the department’s national and regional offices lack supplies of anti-rabies vaccines.
But thanks to the provincial government’s response, anti-vaccines were procured from Manila and 11 of the 23 dogbite victims received their first shots at the provincial hospital last Saturday morning.
The other victims were advised to avail themselves of the free vaccines, although two of them have reportedly gone to Ozamiz City and Metro Manila to seek treatment.
Nubel Alfeche, secretary of the Magsaysay town council, said they have formed a "death squad" to go after stray, rabid dogs, six of which were killed last Saturday.
Alfeche said the town council is expected to pass an ordinance this week on responsible pet ownership. — Richel Umel
Chief Superintendent Jefferson Soriano, Cagayan Valley police director, said Dr. Carolina Garcia, 62, former dean of the La Sallete University, went missing after she negotiated the sale of her Isuzu Crosswind with the suspect, Monette Castroverde.
Informed about Garcia’s disappearance by her husband, Soriano formed a team to locate her and arrest her abductor.
The team managed to trace the buyer of Garcia’s vehicle who, in turn, tipped off the suspect’s possible safehouses.
Garcia was eventually rescued in one of the rooms of the Deocita’s Hotel here where Castroverde temporarily stayed last Friday afternoon.
Soriano said Castroverde injected Garcia with tranquilizers, making her sleepy.
Five more people have come forward to complain that they, too, had fallen victim to Castroverde’s modus operandi. — Charlie Lagascsa
In a three-page resolution, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales ordered the Manila prosecutor’s office to withdraw the information against Buguey Mayor Licerio Antiporda Jr., his son, Vice Mayor Lloyd Antiporda, Romulo Awingan and Richard Mecate.
Gonzales granted the Antipordas’ motion for reconsideration of the Manila prosecutor’s earlier resolution indicting them for the killing of lawyer Franklin Tamarga and his daughter, Franciel Gail, based on the extra-judicial confession of a certain Columna, originally tagged as a suspect.
Gonzales said Columna’s confession "does not suffice to make probable cause for murder" against the Antipordas and the other accused. — Charlie Lagasca