2 kids drown on UP campus

A 12-year-old girl and her younger brother drowned after they went swimming in a well on the University of the Philippines campus in Diliman, Quezon City, on Wednesday afternoon.

Ilyssa Denise Garcia and 9-year-old Ernest Miguel were rescued by bystanders and rushed to East Avenue Medical Center but doctors failed to save them.

Case investigator PO2 Julius Balbuena said the victims lived in the UP Arboretum area.

Ilyssa was a first year high school student at Flora Ylagan High School while Ernest was a Grade 3 pupil of Mines Elementary School.

At 4 p.m. the other day, the two were swimming in a hole filled with rainwater at the National Hydraulic Research Center on the UP campus when a woman who happened to be passing by saw them flailing their arms as if asking for help.

Several boys in the area jumped into the water, rescued the children and took them to the hospital but it was already too late. Julie M. Aurelio