3 dead in South Cotabato highway accident

COTABATO CITY — Three individuals died instantly in a highway mishap involving two vehicles in Barangay Polonuling in Tupi town in South Cotabato on Thursday.

In separate reports on Friday, the Tupi Municipal Police Station and the South Cotabato Provincial Police Office stated that Ralph Anthony Zabala and Hernando Carl Cortez, who were in a black Mazda pick-up truck, and a driver of a Kia Bongo, Louzel Defiño, all died on the spot from the accident.

Quoting witnesses, investigators from the Tupi MPS told reporters that Zabala, who was driving the Mazda pick-up truck at an extremely high speed, overtook the trailer truck they were trailing behind and collided head-on with the Kia Bongo approaching from the opposite direction of the General Santos-Koronadal Highway in Barangay Polonuling.

The driver of the Kia Bongo light truck fully loaded with fishes from a seaport in General Santos, Louzel Defiño, also died on the spot from injuries caused by the accident.

The remains of Zabala, Cortez and Defiño were immediately brought by policemen and emergency responders from the Tupi Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office to a mortuary.