Wednesday, April 11, 2007 Boy was in passenger seat, leaning on pa, holding wheel
THE boy sat in the passenger seat while holding the steering wheel, but his father was in the driver’s seat, a witness recounted yesterday when asked about the car accident that killed two persons in Sitio Maaslom, Barangay Busay, Cebu City.
“The boy was not sitting on the father’s lap. The boy was leaning over the father. It seemed he was being taught how to drive,” Darby Arcillo,19, said in a mobile phone interview.
He clarified an earlier newspaper report (not in Sun.Star Cebu) that the boy was sitting on his father’s lap, learning to drive, when the accident occurred.
Radio reports said the family is planning to seek the assistance of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 to look deeper into the cause of the tragedy.
Based on the records at the St. Peter Memorial Chapels, the fatalities were identified as Saturnino Plaza, 50, and his son Genarleo, 9.
Their family and relatives claimed their remains from the morgue of Perpetual Succour Hospital.
The father and son were first taken to the funeral parlor before they were brought to their residence in Robinville Subdivision, Barangay Dumlog, Talisay City.
Arcillo said the car windows were “blurred” but he could see the father and son inside because he was following them from Lower Busay to Sitio Maaslom, where Plaza’s white Hyundai Excel (GTS 826) plunged down a 300-foot-deep ravine.
He said the car was traveling at minimal speed when it suddenly turned right, heading straight to the ravine.
He is no longer sure, though, if the car was already burning before it fell because “it happened so fast.”
But he heard successive explosions and the car was in flames by the time it hit the ground.
Saturnino’s brother-in-law, Rex, who answered a telephone call from Sun.Star Cebu, begged off from taking questions on the incident.
Rex said the family, especially his younger sister, was deeply traumatized by the tragedy. The family has yet to decide on the burial date because they are still waiting for their relatives abroad.
The Cebu City Fire Department and the Traffic Section of the Cebu City Police Office are also looking into the accident.
However, both the fire department and the traffic section pointed at each other when asked which agency will lead the investigation.
Chief Insp. Jonathan Abella, Traffic Section chief, said the Bureau of Fire Protection is the lead investigating agency because the initial report they received was that the car was already on fire before it plunged down the ravine.
But Supt. Esmael Codilla, city fire marshal, said in a separate interview that it was a “complex incident” but the Traffic Section should lead the investigation because it was a road accident.
Both the traffic section and the fire department, however, clarified that they share the objective of finding what caused the tragedy.
Among the angles they will check is if it was the child who was driving the car.
Codilla said he ordered his men to get samples of the car for tests, particularly to find out why it caught fire.
Abella, for his part, said he tasked SPO4 Ronilo Ermac to conduct an inquiry.
He said they are willing to share information with the fire department. (JST)
