By STEPHEN LOUIE CHECA
San Jose, Antique – A 9-year-old girl died in a motorcycle accident on a road construction site in Barangay Supa here.
The girl, who was in Grade 3, was riding a motorcycle driven by her 31-year-old father when they figured in a road mishap around 8 p.m. on Thursday.
The child and her father sustained injuries and bruises on the body and were rushed to the Angel Salazar Memorial General Hospital in San Jose, Antique but the attending physician referred the child to a hospital in Iloilo. She, somehow, did not survive on the way there.
Her father, meanwhile, has already received medical treatment.
According to their neighbor Kricia Lavega, the two were heading to a hospital to visit the child’s grandmother when the incident happened.
Lavega added the area was “poorly-lighted” and there was no reflectorized signage – only a warning device printed in a tarpaulin.
The family members and neighbors of the victims were calling the attention of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in the province and its contractors to provide proper lighting, early warning devices and signages in all their construction sites to avoid similar accidents.
Antique board member Karmila Rose Dimamay said another innocent life was wasted because of some persons’ “negligence and lack of responsibility.”
Last July, Dimamay sponsored a resolution demanding the DPWH to require all contractors to install safety and precautionary signages to all projects in the national and barangay roads to prevent accidents. The resolution was passed by the provincial board.
Dimamay said they (project engineers and contractors) only “obliged in the beginning.”
She added her office is willing to assist the family in seeking justice and to demand from those “who neglect their responsibilities.”
The DPWH has yet to respond on the incident./PN
