CEBU CITY?The tourist bus rented by Iranian medical students that plunged into a 30-meter ravine on Sunday had an ominous plate number: DWZ-666, the ?Number of the Beast? in the Bible?s Book of Revelation.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known, but Senior Supt. Erson Digal said that the brakes apparently failed before the bus plummeted into the ravine in Balamban town, 60 kilometers outside Cebu, killing 20 Iranians and the Filipino driver and injuring 30 others.
Villagers and police pulled bodies from the mangled wreckage at the rocky bottom, while a backhoe sent by a nearby Japanese shipbuilding company attempted to lift the bus, said Lt. Col. Wilson Feria, the regional military spokesperson.
Cables were attached but the bus with 51 people aboard when it fell was too heavy and there was a danger the backhoe might be pulled down, he added.
Feria said it was not clear if the Iranians were out on a medical mission or for an outing at one of several resorts in and around Cebu.
Probe left to police
Poorly maintained vehicles and roads, along with inadequate safety signs, railings, training and weak traffic law enforcement, are blamed for many deadly accidents in the Philippines.
Iranian Consul Mohammad Tavana, who arrived in Cebu late Sunday, has accepted that it was an accident, according to Dr. Potenciano Larrazabal Jr., owner of Cebu Doctors Hospital where a number of the fatalities and the injured were working as medical residents.
Tavana was leaving the investigation to police authorities, Larrazabal said.
Larrazabal said the consul?s primary concern was to ensure that the injured, 24 of whom were confined at Cebu Doctors Hospital, received proper medical care and that the remains of the fatalities would be brought home to Iran as soon as possible.
Chief Supt. Lani-O Nerez, the Central Visayas police director, said investigators would attempt to determine the cause of the accident and who should be held liable for it.
The dead included 20 Iranians, including a 20-month-old boy, and their Filipino driver, Jaime Batoon, who was also the owner of the bus company, JD Rent a Car (not Catlleya as earlier reported), that operated the 55-seater Hino.
Bus newly acquired
Marcelin Muńez, Batoon?s common-law wife and business partner, said that the company would compensate the victims as the bus was properly insured and has complete registration papers.
Muńez, who claimed Batoon?s body at the Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes on Monday, said the Hino was the first bus acquired by Batoon for their rent-a-car business and was bought only last May 24 from Subic Freeport and brought to Cebu two days later.
She said the bus had a regular driver but he was on another mission and Batoon decided to drive the bus himself.
It was only the second time that the bus was rented, she said, for P15,000 for a day.
Batoon?s body was the last recovered from the wreckage at about 11 p.m., some 12 hours after it fell into the ravine while negotiating a sharp downhill curve.
Residency program
The fatalities included ophthalmologists, radiologists, a pathologist and a surgeon, Larrazabal said. Another ophthalmologist, he said, survived the crash but lost his wife and 8-year-old son.
The Iranians were in the Philippines under a special arrangement for a residency program with the Professional Regulations Commission, Larrazabal said.
Larrazabal said the Iranian professionals were staying in Cebu with their families, which explained why some were bringing their children when they went to Balamban supposedly for a tour and a beach camping event.
He said that the hospital had nothing to do with the tour to celebrate Iran?s Independence Day. Reports from Jhunnex Napallacan and Chito Aragon, Inquirer Visayas; and Associated Press
