5 siblings drown in Northern Samar river

Pambujan town in Northern Samar (Google maps)

CATARMAN, Northern Samar — Five young siblings drowned while swimming in a river in a remote village of Pambujan town, Northern Samar, on Monday (Apr. 10).

The fatalities were identified as Janella Isabel Suansing, 10, and her younger siblings John Cedric, 7; John Fritz, 5; John Jopel, 4 and John Felix, 2, all residents of Barangay Doña Aniceta, eight kilometers away from the town center of Pambujan.

PO3 Geraldine Castillo, information officer of the Samar Provincial Police Office based in Catarman town, said the children asked permission to swim in the river, which was just about 30 meters from their house, on Monday.

But their parents – Josephine and Felipe – prohibited them from doing so because no one would be around to attend to them.

While Josephine was busy doing her laundry and after Felipe had gone out to work, the children slipped out of the house and went to the river and left behind their three-month-old sibling, said Senior Police Officer 1 Hannibal Rodriguez of the Pambujan police station.

When they failed to come home past 1 p.m., the couple started looking for the children only to be told by their neighbors that they were found floating in the river.

Residents were shocked to find the bodies of the children floating in the river about 1:40 p.m. on that same day, said Castillo said.

The children were brought to the St. Scholastica Hospital, also of the same town, but they were pronounced dead on arrival by the attending physician.

“The water current was not that strong. They probably swam to the deeper part of the river and drowned,” Castillo said.  SFM/rga