Trike driver, 2 kids dead in Dipolog City highway mishap

COTABATO CITY — Three individuals, two of them school children, died instantly in a highway mishap involving a tricycle and a truck in Dipolog City on Wednesday morning.

Officials of the Dipolog City Police Station and the Police Regional Office-9 told reporters on Thursday that a 32-year-old tricycle driver, Ronnie Acoymo Merafuentes, his son and nephew, both Grade 3 pupils, were declared dead on arrival in a hospital where they were brought by emergency responders for treatment.

The accident also left the 14-year-old nephew of Mr. Merafuentes badly injured, now in a hospital.

The victims were in a tricycle that a truck hit head-on at a secluded stretch of the highway in Barangay Cogon.

Col. Edwin Duneceho Verzon, Dipolog City Police chief, said Mr. Merafuentes was driving his son and nephews to school.

Mr. Verzon said the truck that figured in the accident is owned by a motorcycle supplier in Lapu-Lapu City in Cebu, loaded with motorcycles that its driver, Rolly John Madaiton Balalilhe, was going to deliver to local suppliers.

Mr. Balalilhe voluntarily surrendered to policemen and barangay officials who responded to the incident, according to Mr. Verzon. — John Felix M. Unson