News Briefs: Oct. 28, 2018

Loakan airport back in service

BAGUIO CITY — Idle since 2011, this mountain city’s only airport will resume operations with the inaugural flight of a travel and tour service aircraft in the second week of November.

MAG Travel and Tours will offer chartered flights twice a week, connecting Loakan Airport with Clark International Airport in Mabalacat City, according to Milagros Rimando, Cordillera director of the National Economic and Development Authority, on Friday (Oct. 26).

Built in 1934, the mountain airport last hosted commercial flights in 2011 connecting Baguio to Manila, Tuguegarao and Batanes.

The flights were discontinued after less than a year due to low bookings and frequent bad weather.

The last time a passenger jet landed on its 1,800-meter runway was in January last year when Miss Universe contestants visited Baguio. —Karlston Lapniten

Bus falls off cliff, kills 1, hurts 24

PAGADIAN CITY — An elderly man died, while 24 others were injured when a bus fell off a cliff into a flower farm at Barangay Balintawak, Aurora town, Zamboanga del Sur province, on Friday.

Rogelio Alagenio, a senior citizen, was killed, while the bus driver, the bus conductor and 22 passengers were injured and brought to a hospital.

They were aboard a Rural Transit bus headed to Pagadian City but fell off a cliff along the national highway and landed on a flower bed, according to Chief Insp. Edgar Hinoctan, Aurora police chief. —Leah Agonoy

14 dead of dengue in Caraga region

BUTUAN CITY — At least 14 persons died of dengue in Caraga region this year.

The Department of Health (DOH) noted a 54-percent spike in the number of dengue cases this year compared to the same period last year.

In a report released this month, the DOH monitored a total of 3,330 cases of dengue in the region in the first nine months of the year.

In Butuan City, the number of dengue cases increased from just 288 in 2017 to 325 in 2018. —Erwin M. Mascariñas