2 Dead, 5 Hurt in Cotabato Road Mishap

COTABATO CITY — A tricycle driver and one of his passengers died while five others were injured in a road mishap in Barangay New Rizal in Mlang town in Cotabato province on Saturday night. Officials of the Mlang Municipal Police Station said on Sunday that the tricycle driver Jovito D. Autillo, Sr. and his passenger, Yolanda P. Cordero, died in the accident. The accident left five other tricycle passengers, Cecil S. Autillo, Felinor L. Sigura and three minors, whom local executives and police investigators identified only as Joy, Clint and Mary, badly injured, now confined to Mlang Medical Specialist Center. Lt. Col. Realan E. Mamon, municipal police chief, said on Sunday that the victims were in Mr. Autillo’s tricycle when it was hit by a 10-wheeler cargo truck from the opposite direction of the highway. The driver of the large truck that collided with the tricycle, Edmund P. Norberte, a resident of Barangay San Emmanuel in Tacurong City, voluntarily yielded to policemen and barangay officials who responded to the incident and turned over to them his driving license. Mr. Mamon and local executives said the truck driven by Norberte was on its way to Davao City when it figured in the accident at an unlit stretch of the highway straddling through the Purok Acacia in Barangay New Rizal. — John Felix M. Unson