Report says Bontoc bus was speeding

The driver of the GV Florida Transport bus that fell off a cliff and killed 15 people in Bontoc, Mt. Province, on Feb. 7 may have been speeding, according to a government forensic team. RICHARD BALONGLONG

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines—The driver of the GV Florida Transport bus that fell off a cliff and killed 15 people in Bontoc, Mt. Province, on Feb. 7 may have been speeding, according to a government forensic team.

The bus was running nearly an hour ahead of schedule, bolstering that conclusion, according to Celina Claver, Cordillera director of the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC).

The forensic team said it found that the brakes of the bus were working when it plunged into a 116-meter ravine. It also found that one of the tires may have burst.

Claver led the team on its inspection of the bus on Feb. 10, three days after the crash. Her report was released to the media this week.

“The Florida bus trip started at around 8:30 p.m. [on Feb. 6.] The accident happened at around 7:20 a.m. [the following day] in Talubin, Mt. Province, which is 13 kilometers more or less from [Barangay] Poblacion, Bontoc,  a 20-minute drive [to the bus terminal],” the report said.

It noted that a bus cruising at normal speeds would take 12 hours to travel 390 kilometers (the distance between the Florida bus terminal in Sampaloc and its terminal in Bontoc).

Alternate driver

This means the bus should have arrived in Bontoc at 8:30 a.m. had its driver, Edgar Reynon, and his alternate, Alexander Longalong, made the trip at average speed.

A police source said Reynon took over the wheel on the approach to the Cordillera.

Claver said the vehicle’s brakes worked fine when her team examined the remains of the bus at the bottom of the ravine in Sitio (subvillage) Pagang, Barangay (village) Talubin.

“The engineers who inspected the bus [discovered] that the brakes were functioning well and [had] engaged, meaning the driver was able to step on the brakes but the bus did not stop. [The] speed and the weight of the bus were among the reasons the bus did not stop,” said Claver said in the report.

The bus broke in two in the crash, killing nine people on the spot, among them, the comedian Alvin “Tado” Jimenez, a female Dutch tourist and a male Canadian tourist. Six other passengers died while being treated in various hospitals.

Two children survived unscathed, but their father, a musician, died, while their mother remained in hospital care.

As the bus sped through Sitio Bayyo, before Sitio Pagang, the driver did not stop when people along the road flagged it, the report said.

The passenger accounts also described how they and the spare driver reacted when they realized that the bus was in danger. The report said they yelled at Reynon to ram the bus into a mountain wall but the driver had apparently failed to hear them.—Kimberlie Quitasol