3 motorists dead in South Cotabato highway mishap

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Three motorists died instantly when a wayward pick-up truck driven by a drunk driver rammed two motorcycles at a portion of a national highway in Koronadal City on Friday.

Brig. Gen. Jimili Macaraeg, director of the Police Regional Office-12, told reporters Saturday the fatalities, Berren Niel Velasco, 25, Alexa Mae Salazar, 23, and the 21-year-old Khyrzhan Mendoza, immediately succumbed to injuries caused by the accident.

Salazar and Velasco were together in a motorcycle while Mendoza was riding alone when they were hit by a speeding Isuzu pickup truck while motoring through a stretch of the Koronadal-General Santos Highway in Barangay Zone 3 in Koronadal City, the capital of South Cotabato province.

Responding investigators, in their initial report to PRO-12 and the South Cotabato Provincial Police Office, said the drunk April Dennis Esma, the 46-year-old driver of the pick-up truck, sustained bruises when his vehicle plunged into a four-feet roadside canal after hitting the two motorcycles.

Esma is now locked in a detention facility of the Koronadal CPO.

The families of the three accident fatalities are keen on filing criminal charges against him.