Probe continues to determine fault in Cotabato van-truck collision

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Investigators are still trying to establish who between two drivers was at fault in Monday’s collision of a van and a dump truck that both burst into flames in an accident in Antipas, Cotabato that resulted in the death of 17 individuals.

Capt. Godofredo Tupas, chief of the Antipas municipal police, told reporters on Tuesday that driver Edwin Nasiad was maneuvering through a curve in a downhill stretch of the highway in Barangay Luhong when his dump truck collided head-on with the passenger van driven by Mark Anthony Bunda, approaching from the opposite direction of the route.

Bunda, a resident of Barangay Poblacion in Antipas, a hinterland town in Cotabato, is one of  17 people who died in the accident.

“Our investigators, barangay officials and personnel of the Antipas Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office are still trying to put a conclusion on the incident based on testimonies of witnesses and the driver of the dump truck who was injured in the accident,” Tupas said.

He said barangay officials and police investigators have a theory that the injured Nasiad lost control of the dump truck while driving downhill, but that they could not immediately subject him to extensive questioning owing to his condition.

Witnesses informed investigators from the Antipas Municipal Police Station and barangay officials who arrived at the scene of the accident that the collision between the passenger van and the dump truck was so forceful that both vehicles flipped, rolled over, and caught fire almost instantly.

Tupas said besides Bunda, 14 of the 17 persons who died in the accident had been identified as of late Monday, Irish Lopez, Mary Jane Lopez, Genevieve Vicente, Kimberly Armada, May Grace Aaron, Percy Balolong, Ernesto Balolong Sr., Shirley Pojas, Winston Sorsano, Michael Heguinto, Virginia Rufino, Maricel Castillon, all of legal age, and the pre-school children Ryse Vince Suan and Xian Gellantilay.

All of the 17 fatalities were in the van, burned together in the fire that razed the vehicle.

The accident also hurt the companions of the truck driver Nasiad, his helper Wilmark Panoy and their companion, Gregorio Casiño, and van passenger Rosario Reyes, now all confined in a hospital.

Tupas said on Tuesday morning that they are still trying to identify the two other dead van passengers, a male and a female, whose belongings billowed up in smoke, leaving nothing, like identification cards that probers can use as proof of their exact identities.