Search for Robredo, companions ongoing

Members of the rescue team searching for missing DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo and two other persons on board a light plane that crashed off Masbate City Saturday. Photo courtesy of Philippine National Red Cross

MANILA, Philippines—The search for missing Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo and his companions was ongoing, Masbate Vice Governor Vicente Homer Revil told TV5.

Earlier, Masbate Representative Scott Davis Lanete said that the search and rescue operations were halted because it was already dark.

He said that search for Robredo and two pilots would resume Sunday morning.

Undersecretary for Peace and Order Rico Puno confirmed in radio interviews that Robredo was onboard the Piper Seneca plane and said that he was with the DILG chief earlier that day as a guest in a convention in Cebu. He said that Robredo had initially booked a flight with Cebu Pacific but eventually flew onboard the plane, owned by the pilot who flew it.

DILG’s Twitter account @DILG initially posted that the plane’s pilot sent a distress call for an emergency landing at the Masbate airport at around 5 p.m. The tweet was later deleted.

Delos Santos said that the DILG chief’s aide Superintendent Jun Abrazado was plucked off the waters after the plane crashed about three kilometers from the airport. Abrazado told authorities that Robredo was not able to get out of the aircraft.

Superintendent Jeffrey Mendez, deputy provincial director of Masbate, said that Abrazado insisted on going back to where the aircraft crashed but had to be taken back to a hospital due to his injuries, said Mendez.