Cotabato mayor, 5 others hurt in road crash

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A municipal mayor in Cotabato province was badly injured in a vehicular crash at about 3:00 p.m., Wednesday, in Digos City, also hurting five others, two of them grade school children.

Lt. Col. Hamlet Lerios, chief of the Digos City Police Station, told reporters late Wednesday that Mayor Juanito  Agustin of Pigcawayan town in the first district of Cotabato lost control of the Nissan pick-up truck he was driving and hit head-on a center island at a stretch of Cotabato-Digos Highway in Barangay Tres de Mayo.

The mayor's spouse, Nancy, 42, their nine-year-old child Nikiey, and three others, Jackie Agustin, 37, Angel Caños, 10, and the 15-year-old Juan Agustin, were also hurt in the crash.

Lerios, citing feedback by responding traffic accident probers, said the injured mayor was unconscious when he was rushed to a hospital by policemen and emergency responders. 

Relatives and Pigcawayan LGU officials told reporters Thursday morning that Agustin, a first-termer mayor, has regained consciousness at about dusk Wednesday and that his vital signs are stable. But he still needs extensive medical intervention.