Seeking justice

Imagine your darling daughter, the love of your life walking down the aisle.

It’s a difficult scene to imagine for many fathers. But try imagining your “baby” walking down the aisle on one leg because a reckless driver caused an accident that resulted in the amputation of her right leg.

Sadly, that is how “Ysa” or Maria Isabel Trinidad will walk down the aisle if and when she gets married. When she does her wedding march, her right leg will be an artificial leg. When the couple does their first dance as husband and wife, Ysa will have to rely on her future husband for support on the dance floor.

I first “met” Ysa on Facebook where I learned that she was recently handicapped and wanted to share her time with children who lost parts of their body because of firecrackers. At that time I had no idea on how Ysa lost her leg and she made no mention of it. From her email she sounded like someone who had overcome a great tragedy, fell in love with God and simply wanted to help kids cross a very painful and fear-filled episode in their lives.

So, I pointed her to several directions and a possible contact, and a week later I received a “mission accomplished” post from her. She had hooked up with an ABS-CBN reporter who is always a mine full of opportunities in terms of people in need. In fact, her selfless endeavor even earned her a feature story on TV Patrol.

It was much later when Ysa shared what happened to her and how she lost her leg in a vehicular accident. Aside from an incident report, YSA also included CCTV footage of the alleged incident. This are the details she sent me:

The vehicular accident occurred on the evening of June 12, 2011 when Ysa and her officemates from Accenture Philippines were on board a Nissan Urvan driving along the South Luzon Expressway. The group was part of a team-building event and were preoccupied with business, unaware of impending disaster.

Based on a SLEX CCTV footage, an L-200 van had apparently missed a turn along the highway. But instead of driving on to the next exit and doing a turn around drive, the driver of the L-200 van simply turned on his “Hazard” lights and drove backward to the exit.

Since it was night time and rush hour on the SLEX this was clearly a reckless thing to do and the results were devastating. The driver of the Nissan Urvan who happened to be on the right lane did not expect the Mitsubishi van to be backing out towards them. The Nissan Urvan slammed full force into the L-200.

As a result the passengers in the Nissan Urvan ended up with the most injury. Ysa suffered the most with facial laceration and her right leg was eventually amputated. For months YSA has had to undergo treatment as well as therapy including getting a prosthetic leg.

What I find unbelievable in all this is, according to YSA, the Mitsubishi L-200 with plate number TSC - 932 managed to drive off. Because YSA was left badly injured she never found out who the driver was, never got his address or any way of contacting the owner of the vehicle regarding her injury and medical expenses as well as permanent disability.

Whether it’s a case of hit and run or not, I really have no way of telling how someone can cause an accident and not be detained or arrested especially if the plate number of the vehicle was recorded by witnesses.

We texted the LTO mobile-sms verification system and the information we received was that TSC-932 is a Mitsubishi L-200 model 1995, color silver and last registered on Feb. 23, 2011.

I hope Undersecretary Virginia Torres of the Land Transportation Office and PNP Chief Nick Bartolome can get some of their staff to track down the driver/owner of the Mitsubishi Estrada (TSC-932) to shed light on the matter. Perhaps the good people of SLEX can also help bring closure to this very unfortunate incident.

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I received an SMS message presumably from Chairman Francis Tolentino advising me that the MMDA does not receive a single centavo from the producers of “Bourne Legacy”. In fact it seems that the people at MMDA are wishing and praying that the shooting would soon be over for obvious reasons.

I don’t know who managed to work out the deal for a foreign film company to use our major streets as their “set”, but considering the drain on MMDA and police personnel, not to mention the inconvenience to motorists and ordinary citizens, I seriously think that Malacanang should seriously review the matter. Either we charge a hefty sum to help MMDA and the PNP or they totally ban any and all film shoots in Metro Manila streets.

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