COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Another farmer in North Cotabato province killed with a machete a large adult King Cobra, the 29th since late 2019 in what seemed a phenomenon without any scientific explanation yet.
The cobra that farmer Chokoy Saban killed Saturday in Barangay Maybula in Tulunan, North Cotabato was almost 11 feet long.
Motorists have even deliberately ran over more than a dozen cobras slithering through concrete farm-to-market roads in hinterland towns in the second district of North Cotabato, those located in the immediate surroundings of the forested Mt. Apo, the country’s tallest peak.
No fewer than five people in North Cotabato and nearby Maguindanao province, one of them a grade school pupil, reportedly succumbed to cobra bite in the past 24 months.
Experts from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources had told reporters the strong earthquakes that jolted North Cotabato more a hundred times in late 2019 may have forced the cobras out of their natural habitats, causing them to slither through farms and on stretches of barangay roads where they become easy targets for passersby.
Science teachers in state colleges in the province said lack of food and increase in temperature and humidity in pits could also be one reason that cobras went astray.
Local officials have earlier called on the Department of Health to provide local government units with anti-venoms after a number of villagers got bitten by cobras in recent months.
Just like previous man-cobra encounters in North Cotabato, Saban’s having killed one on Saturday went viral on social media, netizens amazed with how large King Cobras in the province are.