A TAXI driver yesterday escaped death by jumping out of his taxi when a concrete Visayan Electric Co. pole fell on P. Del Rosario Street.
The pole was pulled down when a passing truck of Atlantic Hardware snagged overhead telephone cables of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. attached to the pole.
Taxi driver Gary Almencion was driving along when the post fell and smashed the taxi’s windshield and hood.
“If I didn’t jump out in time, I would have died,” Almencion said in Cebuano.
The incident snarled traffic on N. Bacalso Avenue and P. Del Rosario Street. PLDT linemen removed the wires from the post before lifting it off the taxi.
The driver of the prime mover truck carrying a container said the wires were hanging low.
“I pass by this place every day but the vehicle got caught in the wires just today,” said driver Dionisio Calonia.
“They must have been hanging low because of the rain.”
A PLDT representative said their cables and posts have a standard length and height.
“Our lines were not dangling and in fact followed the standard height of 20 to 22 feet. The truck was too high and dragged the lines,” said Bong Lintag of PLDT.
Lintag said their restoration team installed a new pole at 1 p.m. yesterday.
“Our security already had the incident blottered. PLDT and the taxi operator will go after Atlantic.”
“Had our cables been cut that could have been a very complicated situation because subscribers in the area would lose their telephone connections,” Lintag said.
SPO4 Ronilo Ermac, chief investigator of the City Traffic Operations Management, said the driver of the truck should be blamed for the incident.
He should have been watchful since he was driving a big vehicle and the electric post is stationery, Ermac said./Carine M. Asutilla and Aileen Garcia-Yap