FOUR persons drowned in separate incidents in Iloilo and Calapan City in Oriental Mindoro during Holy Thursday and Good Friday, according to police reports.
Two of those who drowned were in Passi City, according to reports reaching the Iloilo Police Provincial Office (IPPO).
Shainah Padilla, 8, a Grade 3 pupil, died at 10 a.m. on Thursday while swimming at the Lamunan River.
She was brought to the Don Valerio Palmares Sr. Memorial District Hospital in Passi after she was seen by a cousin but doctors pronounced her dead on arrival.
On Good Friday, Jemaima Grace Donesa, 6, a kindergarten pupil, also drowned at Barangay (village) Man-it along the Jalaur River about 11 a.m. She was also pronounced dead on arrival at the same hospital.
On the same day, Gino Danggaran, 24, a resident of Barangay Libo-o, Dingle town, drowned at 2 p.m. while swimming with friends at Moroboro dam in the same municipality.
Danggaran failed to surface after diving into the water, according to a report of the IPPO.
In the City of Calapan, a 6-year-old boy drowned on Good Friday at a beach in Barangay Suqui, police said.
Russel Canonicato was found on the shore near a resort around 2:45 p.m. by a search team, according to Jefferson Pasajol, head of the Emergency Management Section of the city’s Public Safety Department.
The boy and his family, all from Barangay Libis in Calapan, were among a big number residents here who flocked to the beaches of Calapan during Holy Week.
The child’s father had thought his son was just playing at the beach and took awhile before he realized he was missing, said Pasajol.
“Several people helped in the search. The boy was found dead 6 meters from the seashore,” said Pasajol. Nestor P. Burgos Jr., Inquirer Visayas and Madonna T. Virola, Inquirer Southern Luzon