2 dead in Mindanao road incidents

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  --- A driver died of cardiac arrest while chasing the driver of another truck that swept his truck while a woman was killed when a passenger van turned turtle in separate incidents Friday in Central Mindanao. 

Investigators of the Kidapawan City police said 66-year-old Simeon Antonio died with his both hands pressed on his chest, after he suffered a heart attack for failing to overtake the fleeing vehicle that hit one side of his truck.

Antonio was driving a cargo truck, bearing license plate RCX-723, bound for Davao City that figured in an accident with another truck, an Isuzu Elf with license plate PPR-189.

Antonio, according to his helpers, became furious when the Isuzu truck, instead of pulling over, sped away.

An incensed Antonio tried to chase the smaller truck, but failed to overtake and stop its driver from fleeing.

Witnesses said Antonio pulled over along a busy section of the Kidapawan-Davao Highway and started writhing in pain, while massaging his chest with his two hands.

Responding villagers rushed him to a hospital where attending doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.

The incident was preceded by the death of a teacher, Cecile Maliga, in a highway accident in Koronadal City several hours earlier.

Maliga was one of more than 10 passengers of an air-conditioned van that turned turtle while its driver was maneuvering a downhill curb in a remote stretch of the Koronadal-Gen. Santos City Highway.

Maliga, along with her six-year-old son, was on her way to New Bataan town in the typhoon-ravaged Compostela Valley to visit her soldier-spouse assigned in the area.

Maliga’s son and most of the passengers of the ill-fated van sustained abrasions and contusions in different parts of their bodies. - John Unson