9 killed in Maguindanao highway crash

COTABATO City, Philippines - Nine commuters were killed after a passenger van collided with a dump truck along a highway in Parang, Maguindanao on Sunday afternoon.

Mayor Ibrahim Ibay, chairman of the Parang municipal disaster risk management and mitigation council, said that both vehicles were maneuvering a dangerous curve of the Secretary Narciso Ramos Highway when the accident happened.

Ibay said the van bearing license plate number MEE 797, was bound for Pagadian City while the Blue dump truck, was en route to a sand and gravel quarry in nearby Sultan Kudarat town, also in Maguindanao.

Four of the nine fatalities were identified as Virginia Sinarillos, Mike Mokkamad, Nurhaya Baliodong at Jovergen Sinarillos.

“Two  of the van passengers died on the spot, while the other fatalaties succumbed while being transported to the hospital by our ambulances,” Ibay told The Star.

Ibay and the provincial director of the Maguindanao police, Senior Superintendent Rodelio Jocson, both said that the nine van passengers killed in the collision died from injuries in the head and torsos.

Jocson said 15 injured van passengers and hitchhikers that boarded the dump truck were rushed to different hospitals. They were identified as Tony Tabanso, Tommy Bagsi, Sherwin Padasil, Mary Joy Taha, Papajia Gio, Layson Salvacion, Mohaiden Salik, Faith Traya, Mario Jiamra, Nor Lu-awan, Manny Tabanan, Joan Sinarillos, Rowena Herojala, Grace Hinabi,  Sherlyn Naraño and her two grade school children.

The incident was Central Mindanao’s second this month.

Nine passengers of an air-conditioned van carrying nursing students bound for Pikit, North Cotabato from Cotabato City for a public health nursing exposure were killed in an accident involving two other vehicles.

The van collided head-on with a jeepney while its driver was maneuvering a sharp curve of the Cotabato-Davao Highway in Barangay Takepan in Pikit and slammed into an approaching Army 6x6 truck full of soldiers coming from the opposite direction of the highway.

Local officials in Central Mindanao, alarmed by the two deadly accidents, the region’s worst in recent years, have called on authorities to impose measures to prevent more accidents.

Cause-oriented groups have also called on operators of passengers van to have their drivers tested for drugs periodically and have their eye sights checked by ophthalmologists to determine their visual fitness to drive passenger vehicles.