News Briefs: May 30, 2019

No trace yet of missing PH pilot, Saudi student pilot

MANILA, Philippines — Officials of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (Caap) on Tuesday updated Saudi Ambassador to the Philippines Dr. Abdullah Al Bussairy on the ongoing search and rescue operations for the pilot and Saudi student pilot of a training plane that went missing off Mindoro Island on May 17.

The aircraft, a Beechcraft Baron 55 operated by Orient Aviation Corp., disappeared from radar screens after taking off from the airport in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro.

The pilot, Nelson Yapparcon, and student pilot Abdullah Khalid al Sharif, are stil missing. Jim

Sydiongco, director general of the Caap; Donaldo Mendoza, deputy director general for operations; and Gil Maglaque, chief of security and intelligence, discussed the status of the search and rescue efforts with Al Bussairy at the Caap headquarters in Pasay City.

They told the ambassador that on May 24, Orient Aviation provided sonar equipment and sent two technicians and two divers to help in the search operations.

The sonar equipment had scanned 2,000 hectares of seabed, the Caap said.

“The divers, a Filipino and a Spaniard, have identified points of interest and will be the focusing on these areas in the succeeding days,” it added. —Jerome Aning

Pampanga lawmaker wants to be a ‘unifying’ Speaker

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines — Pampanga Rep. Aurelio Gonzales said he would unite the House of Representatives if given the chance to become its next Speaker.

“I have no political ambition in 2022. I have no business to protect. I can deal with all political parties and get people together on causes,” Gonzales told the Inquirer on Tuesday from Tokyo, where he joined President Rodrigo Duterte’s entourage.

“Like a president in a class, I can help settle issues right on the floor,” said Gonzales, who won a second term to represent Pampanga’s third district.

He urged his fellow legislators to forget partisan politics in choosing the next Speaker and instead “unite to push the legislative agenda” of the President.

Gonzales said he would “listen to the President’s guidance until the right leader of the House was chosen.” —Tonette Orejas

4 children, not 2, killed in Sulu clash–BARMM rights body

ZAMBOANGA CITY—Four children, not two, died in Saturday’s clash between government forces and Abu Sayyaf terrorists at Barangay Igasan in Patikul, Sulu, according to the human rights commission of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). “We found out that four children were killed,” lawyer Fatima Sarpina Hinay, head of commission, said on Wednesday. Hinay said the killings may have been perpetrated by the Abu Sayyaf as “the soldiers were playing games with the children” when they were attacked. The firefight on Saturday afternoon involved members of the Army’s 6th Special Forces Battalion, who were holding a dialogue with villagers of Igasan, and some 30 Abu Sayyaf fighters, according to Brig. Gen. Divino Rey Pabayo, commander of Joint Task Force Sulu. —JULIE ALIPALA