Mayor Angel Alan Celino of Roxas City hurt in road accident

ILOILO CITY—The mayor of Roxas City and his driver were wounded in a vehicular accident in Zarraga town in Iloilo early on Sunday.

Mayor Angel Alan Celino, 53, fractured his left shoulder when the vehicle he was riding hit a concrete fence and a post about 4:50 a.m. on Sunday.

His driver, Alvin Panizal, 41, suffered a minor injury in the left leg.

Both were confined at St. Paul’s Hospital Iloilo in this city.

In a telephone interview from his hospital bed, Celino said he would undergo an operation to reconnect the fractured bone.

The mayor was seated on the front passenger seat of his Ford pickup driven by Panizal when the vehicle hit a concrete wall in Barangay Poblacion Ilaya in Zarraga, about 16 kilometers north of Iloilo City.

The vehicle, which was severely damaged, also hit an electric post and a parked empty passenger jeepney, PO1 Carlito Berte, investigator of the Zarraga police station, said in a telephone interview.

“We were traveling slowly and my driver might have fallen asleep,” Celino told the Inquirer.

The mayor said they left Roxas City at around 3:30 a.m. for Iloilo where he was expected to receive a citation from the Police Regional Office in Western Visayas on Monday.