BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – Three people died in two separate drowning incidents in Negros Occidental during Holy Week.
On Maundy Thursday, April 1, a 36-year-old fisherman perished in the waters off Barangay Canturay, Sipalay City.
He was Federico Agencia, a resident of the city’s Barangay San Jose, according to a report from the Sipalay City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office.
Investigation revealed that Agencia got trapped in the mangrove area and drowned around 9 a.m.
Authorities were not able to retrieve Agencia’s body for at least another hour.
The other drowning case involved two friends. This happened on Black Saturday, April 3, in Murcia town.
The two were Jerry Pamalo-an, 22, and Jomae Hernaez, 14, a police report showed.
They and other friends were bathing in the river in the town’s Barangay Damsite when strong currents swept Hernaez.
Pamalo-an tried to save the girl but he, too, was swept away.
The victims’ remains were recovered in a tunnel of a National Irrigation Administration dam.
Rescuers brought the victims to the Murcia Rural Health Unit but the attending physician declared them “dead on arrival.”/PN
