Charges filed vs Partas driver in collision

The police on Tuesday filed charges of reckless imprudence resulting in multiple homicide against Partas driver Rodel Sadac, 43, whose bus figured in a head-on collision with a jeepney in Agoo, La Union, on Christmas Day, killing 20 jeepney passengers.

The victims, all from the village of Pilar, a fishing community in Bauang town, La Union, were on their way to hear the 5 a.m. Mass at the Minor Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary of Manaoag in Pangasinan when their jeepney collided with the Partas bus driven by Sadac.

Twenty-nine members of an extended family, 11 of them children, left Pilar in a rented jeepney at 2 a.m. that day for Manaoag, said Chief Insp. Roy Villanueva, Agoo police chief.

But when the jeepney tried to overtake another vehicle on the southbound lane of the Manila North Road in Agoo’s Barangay San Jose Sur, it slammed into an Ilocos Norte-bound Partas bus at 3:30 a.m.

Devastated

“The whole village was devastated. We are all mourning because we are all relatives here,” said Marivick Bulacan, village chief of Pilar, in an interview on Tuesday.

Pilar (pop. 415, PSA, 2015), is a fishing community on the southern coast of Bauang and the town’s smallest village.

Most of its residents are fishermen and fish vendors, according to Bulacan. When news about the tragedy reached her village early Monday morning, everybody cried, she said.

“We immediately proceeded to the Agoo police station to verify,” Bulacan said.

On Tuesday, the caskets of the dead started arriving at the village plaza where a common wake was being held.

But only 18 caskets will be at the public square because the wake for the driver of the ill-fated jeepney, Rolando Perez Jr., will be held at his parents’ house in Barangay Paringao, also in Bauang, Bulacan said.

Another victim, Kennedy Cabagbag, was taken by relatives to Ilocos Sur province. Cabagbag’s 6-month-old child, Kyle, was the youngest fatality. Cabagbag’s partner, Claudine Cabradilla, also died.

Most of the victims belonged to the Antolin clan, which led the annual Christmas pilgrimage to Manaoag.

Pepito and Vergie Antolin, their daughter Cecil Antolin and 7-year-old grandson Mark Jerson Cabero were among those killed in the tragic road crash. —GABRIEL CARDINOZA