Bus firm can’t blame bad roads–DPWH

THE WRECKAGE of the Florida Transport bus is left at a farm in Barangay (village) Talubin in Bontoc, Mt. Province. Strewn around it are personal belongings of its passengers, 14 of whom had died and 32 others taken to hospitals in Mt. Province, Baguio City and Metro Manila. RICHARD BALONGLONG

MANILA, Philippines—The’s blaming the poor condition of the road for the Feb. 7 fatal accident involving one of its buses was “unbelievable,” said a Department of Public Works and Highways official in Bontoc, Mt. Province.

“It’s not true. That portion of the Bontoc-Nueva Vizcaya road where the accident occurred is well-maintained,” Wilbur Likigan, the district engineer in the DPWH field office in Bontoc, said in a phone interview.

He said there is a roving team of road sweepers that makes sure the entire stretch of the road is free of sand particles, stones, rocks and other loose materials caused by landslides.

Likigan said it was “totally unfair” to blame the condition of the road for the crash of the Florida Transport bus that left 14 people dead and 31 more injured.

“We’re inclined to believe it was either mechanical failure or the bus driver’s error that may have caused the crash, definitely not the road condition,” Likigan said.

Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board Chair Winston Ginez said the other day that mechanical failure and the driver’s negligence apparently led to the tragedy.

The LTFRB has slapped a 30-day suspension on all 228 units of the GV Florida Transport after discovering that the license plate of the ill-fated public utility vehicle belonged to a bus owned by another company, the Mountain Province Cable Tours (MPCT).

An initial LTFRB investigation found that the MPCT franchise and its buses were sold to GV Florida Transport in September last year.

Driver Edgar Renon, who survived the crash, and the owners of the firm, have been charged with reckless imprudence resulting in multiple homicide and multiple physical injuries.

The charges were based on affidavits of survivors and witnesses who said the bus was speeding on the sloping highway before it fell into the ravine.—Jerry E. Esplanada