Sugarcane Truck Plows Through Family's House for the Third Time

A truck loaded with sugarcane rammed into a house in the early morning of January 14th killing two people. It is a tragedy on many levels. Let's take a closer look at the details as they differ from report to report.

https://visayandailystar.com/two-killed-by-wayward-truck/

A 10-wheeler truck figured in a road crash, slamming into a house along the highway at Brgy. Antipolo, Pontevedra, Negros Occidental, yesterday, killing of its two occupants.

Police said that JR Cordero, 30, died on the spot, while his 58-year-old mother, Ermie, was declared dead on arrival later at the Don Salvador Benedicto Memorial Hospital in La Carlota City.

PCapt. Hancel Lumandaz, Pontevedra acting police chief, in his report to the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office, disclosed that the 10-wheeler Isuzu truck loaded with sugarcane, driven by Henry Salgado Sr, accompanied by his 8-year-old son, hit the road railings, slammed and fell into the house of Cordero family, resulting in the deaths of JR and his mother.

Also injured were Salgado and his son, as well as Leona Cordero, 12. Both minors, however, sustained minor injuries, while Salgado was reported to be in critical condition, according to the Pontevedra police.

The house of the victims was declared as totally damaged.

In this version of the story a man driving a sugarcane truck slammed into the road railings and fell over into the house. His son was riding shotgun and sustained injuries. A 12 year old girl who lived in the house was also injured. The house was totally damaged.

Now let's see how Philstar reported this story.

 A 10-wheeler truck loaded with sugarcane rammed a house along the highway in Barangay Antipolo in Pontevedra, Negros Occidental yesterday, leaving two occupants dead.

Police said JR Cordero, 30, died at the scene while his 58-year-old mother Ermie was declared dead on arrival at the Don Salvador Benedicto Memorial Hospital.

Capt. Hancel Lumandaz, Pontevedra acting police chief, said the truck driver, Henry Salgado Sr., is in critical condition in a hospital while his eight-year-old son and a 12-year-old girl, who were his passengers, suffered minor injuries.

The house of the fatalities was destroyed.

https://www.philstar.com/nation/2022/01/15/2153925/truck-rams-house-2-dead

In this version the house was hit by the sugarcane truck which was driven by Henry Salgado. Riding with him was his 8-year- old son and a 12-year-old girl. We are not told the relation of the girl to the driver. "The house of the fatalities was destroyed" is a rather cumbersome way of saying the house was destroyed. 

Next up is Sunstar.

https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/1918186/bacolod/local-news/ma-son-die-3-injured-as-truck-rams-house

A family was caught by surprised when a 10-wheeler truck loaded with sugarcane rammed through their house at Barangay Antipolo in Pontevedra town, Negros Occidental past 1 a.m. Friday, January 14.

The accident claimed the lives of Ermie Cordero, 58, and her son JR, 30, and caused minor injuries to her daughter Leona, 12, Pontevedra Municipal Police Station deputy chief Lieutenant Rowell Peniero said.

Peniero said JR died on the spot while his mother Ermie died while being treated hours after she was brought at a hospital.

He said the Corderos failed to save themselves as they were sleeping when the accident happened.

Truck driver Henry Salgado, 46, of Barangay Bi-ao in Binalbagan town, and his eight-year-old son, were also injured and were brought to a hospital in La Carlota City, Peniero also said.

The police officials said, however, that the driver needed to be transferred to a hospital in Bacolod City as his injuries were severe.

Investigation showed that the truck was heading west of the provincial road and hit the railings upon reaching the area between Puroks Santan and Amorabita before ramming into the house of the Corderos.

The truck also fell and the about 40 tons of sugarcane it carries also spilled over the house made of mix materials.

The victims needed to be retrieved from the rubble of their collapsed house, Peniero said, adding that Salgado might have lost control over his vehicle since the road was descending.

Salgado may be facing reckless imprudence resulting in multiple homicide with damage to properties.

In this version were are told that the family "was caught by surprised" when a sugarcane truck rammed into their house. In this version we are told that the injured 12-year-old is the daughter of the woman and sister of the man who died. The family "failed to save themselves as they were sleeping" is a very awkward thing to write because it makes it appear like they are responsible for their deaths when the fact is a truck crashed into their home and dumped 40 tons of sugarcane on top of them. The driver could be facing charges.

Finally let's see what Panay News has to say about this story.

A 40-ton cane truck fell on its side and crushed a small house in Barangay Antipolo, Pontevedra, Negros Occidental early yesterday morning. Two people were killed and one was injured.

Authorities identified the fatalities as 30-year-old JR Cordero and his mother, 58-year-old Ermie Cordero.

JR’s sister, 12-year-old Leona, survived but sustained multiple injuries.

Pontevedra police traffic investigator Police Corporal Genesis Beñas, said the truck driven by 46-year-old Henry Salgado, Sr. was heading west and was making a turn when he overshot, causing the truck to fall  on to its side and crashing in to the Cordero family’s home.

The victims were trapped for several hours in the wreckage and ultimately both JR and Ermie were declared dead on arrival at a hospital in La Carlota City, Negros Occidental.

Salgado, meanwhile, was hospitalized after the incident. He is believed to be inebriated at the time incident.

It was also not the first instance that the house was involved in an accident. 

In September of 2021, a truck also smashed into the house of the Cordero family. No one was injured in that incident, although the family’s dog was killed.

Salgado could face criminal charges over the incident, and police are still waiting for the decision of the Cordero family if they would press charges.

https://www.panaynews.net/cane-truck-crushes-house-in-pontevedra/

This story also tells us that the 12-year-old girl was the sister of the man and daughter of the woman who was killed. We also get the significant detail that the driver was inebriated. Why did none of the other news articles report that? We are also told that Salgado could face criminal charges if the family decided to press charges! That makes no sense if the man was driving drunk. According to the police his son told them he had been drinking all day!

The child of Salgado, aged eight, told policemen his father had been drinking the entire day before driving early in the morning of 15 August when the incident happened.

https://dnx.news/family-including-two-minors-to-face-charges-for-death-of-pa-in-kabankalan-drunk-driver-in-death-of-two-in-pontevedra-still-critical-in-hospital/

That is a crime punishable by law. The government should be the party who brings charges against this man and not the family.

One last thing that this story tells us is that this is not the first time this house was involved in a sugarcane truck accident. In September 2021 a sugarcane truck smashed into the Cordero's house and killed their dog.

https://dailyguardian.com.ph/dog-killed-after-being-buried-in-sugarcane-pile/

A pet dog was killed in a road mishap at Barangay Antipolo, Pontevedra, Negros Occidental yesterday.

According to Police Captain Hancel Lumandaz, town police chief, a German Shepherd was pinned by a pile of sugarcane that fell from a truck which overshot to the roadside.

Lumandaz said the truck driver reportedly lost control of the vehicle when it was about to turn.

The caption on the picture gives us even more information which is not in the article.

A truck loaded with sugarcane overshot to the roadside, hitting a portion of a house, and killing a pet dog at Barangay Antipolo, Pontevedra, Negros Occidental Tuesday. 

It's pretty tragic to lose a dog to a wayward sugarcane truck. But it gets worse. This same house was also the location of a sugarcane truck accident exactly a year earlier on January 14, 2021!

Beside the provincial road, if one faces east, an uprooted mango tree lies.

Its branches already wilted, leaves stripped almost a month after Odette, a Category 5 storm roared across the province a week before Christmas eve of 2021.

That tree is on a downward slope of the road that starts to curve right, the part where drivers usually start to hit the brakes.

On 14 January 2021, Ermie Gregorio and her son, JR, were saved by that tree when a truck loaded with sugarcane missed the curve and plunged headlong into their house.

Only a portion of the roof was hit.

A dog in the kitchen died.

Exactly a year later yesterday, 14 January 2022, Ermie and JR were asleep early in the morning around 1am when Henry Salgado was driving a 10-wheeler truck.

https://dnx.news/tiempo-suerte-tragedy-truck-crashes-crushes-house-kills-two/

A year ago the Corderos were saved by a mango tree. A year later the mango tree had been uprooted by typhoon Odette and they had no protection. The fact that they survived a previous sugarcane truck crash only to die exactly a year later from a sugarcane truck crashing into their house serves to increase the weight of the tragedy with the added level of irony.

All three trucks were going around a curve when they overshot it and took a nasty spill on the the same house. Thanks to the magic of Google street view you can virtually travel that dangerous route as it goes through Barangay Antipolo in Pontevedra.

Sugarcane Truck Route

It's unfortunate that every truck driver in the Philippines drives like a maniac speeding and racing through red lights. It does not help that sugarcane trucks are always overloaded giving them a potentially deadly cargo. Generally speaking sugarcane trucks are old rust buckets that seem to be barely held together. Oftentimes they don't have functional headlights. Each one of those trucks is a disaster waiting to happen. It is indeed tragic that this family's house was hit three times by a sugarcane truck but they are not the first. 

https://dailyguardian.com.ph/two-hurt-as-truck-crashes-into-house/

A mother and her son were injured after a six-wheeler truck loaded with sugarcane crashed into their house at Bangga Malubon, Purok Santol, Barangay Paraiso, Sagay City, Negros Occidental on Monday.

Wounded were Ruby Opelina, 49, and her seven-year-old son, whose name was withheld.

Police Major Antonio Benitez Jr., city police chief, said that the truck driven by 36-year-old Emilio Openio was moving in a descending direction when the vehicle’s brakes allegedly malfunctioned, causing the vehicle to crash into Opelina’s house and damaging it.

Benitez said that the mother was sitting, checking her son, who was sleeping, when the accident occurred past 10 a.m.

Both victims suffered minor injuries.

Benitez said that the mother is still confined at a hospital while her son was already discharged.

He said that the truck driver was already released from police custody after the 18-hour reglementary detention. Both parties also had an initial settlement, he added.

There is no reason the brakes should suddenly malfunction. These accidents are totally preventable if only the drivers practiced safety first which includes making sure the vehicle is 100% functional and slowing when going around a curve.

Sugarcane Obstructing the Road

I came upon this scene at 6 in the morning. No idea how long it had been like this.

Long enough for someone to put up a makeshift barricade. Did the driver do that? If so why did he not scoop that sugarcane back into the truck? By 9 the sugarcane was gone. Guess where it went?

To the curb of the street across form the intersection it was obstructing!!! Is there any reason that whoever moved the sugarcane could not call in a truck to come haul it away? I bet it will sit there for a long time. I have seen sugarcane dropped at this intersection brushed over to this same area and just sit there until it deteriorated from the sun and the rain

Overloaded Sugarcane Truck Stuck In Low-Hanging Power Lines

 The title of this post says it all. Check out this beauty. What a beast! 

Lets look a little closer shall we?

One more angle ought to show the whole picture.

Can you tell that it's only two or three stalks holding up the line?

This is really all it takes to hold up traffic and make you look stupid. I know they overload these trucks for expediency's sake but that is no excuse. There is also no excuse for power lines to be this low.  You can see in the third picture there is a beer truck barely making clearance. There are actually many large trucks which come barreling down this road and there are many power lines that are too low. It's a disaster waiting to happen. I am surprised it does not happen every day.

Sugarcane Growing in a Field of Garbage

 I enjoy observing the lifecycle of sugarcane. Here is the end of that cycle:

Each field is burned after the harvest. But before being burned the field is sifted for leftovers which are used as seeds. These are loaded onto a tractor and then taken away for sorting.

Piles of these seeds are then placed around the field for easy planting. 

These aren't technically seeds but setts. The sugarcane is planted vegetatively which means rather than sowing seeds parts of the stalk are planted. These take root and grow into healthy sugarcane plants. After the field is throughly tilled and manured the setts are then sown and planted.

Can you see what the problem is in this picture? There is garbage in the field. These setts are being sown amongst garbage!

That is plain disgusting. To their credit when the guy who buried these setts came by he did toss the garbage aside. However it was still in the field.

But what are these men supposed to do? It's not their job to pick up garbage and if they did where they put it? I have seen plenty of sugarcane fields strewn with garbage. These are mostly near roads where people simply toss their garbage and the wind and stray dogs spread it everywhere. You have to wonder how healthy the soil is when there is garbage everywhere. Perhaps those who own these fields could employ men to clean up all the garbage. Who wants to buy sugar knowing the plant was was growing in poisoned soil?

Overloaded Sugar Cane Trucks 4

What is up with these overladed sugar cane trucks I will never understand. You see the thing is oftentimes the trucks can be packed nice and neat like so:

Sure there is a bit of sugar cane hanging out the back but it's not stacked high and there is a net covering the product. It looks nice and neat and, more importantly, safe. Quite unlike the following trucks.

Why there is no uniformity amongst the way these trucks are stacked I have no idea. Why would anyone think stacking the sugar cane in such a haphazard manner is safe? Maybe they don't think it's safe.  Maybe they aren't thinking at all!

Sugarcane Truck and Car Accident

Traffic was backed up and moving slow and I couldn't take it any longer. My destination was just up ahead past the next light. At this speed I figured I walking would be faster so I said, "I'm going. Just meet me up there." Because there are no sidewalks I was forced to march on the edge of the road squeezed between traffic and businesses. Motorcycles attempted to sneak on by. One false move and I could have been squashed.

Finally I reached the light and the cause of all the traffic problems was revealed.

An empty sugarcane truck and a car had gotten into an accident. No one was hurt and the drivers and occupants of both vehicles were standing off to the side as the PNP took pictures and noted the scene.

From the looks of it the truck got a little too close to the car and its wheel smashed the side mirror and took off the front bumper. Or maybe the car got a little close, sheared its bumper, and then the truck smashed the mirror. It's hard for me to tell and I didn't ask at the scene. Someone dun goofed that's for sure.

It's strange that an empty sugarcane truck was involved in this accident. I am always on edge waiting to see an accident with a full truck which has spilled all its overflowing contents onto some hapless driver crushing him in an instant. 

Maybe one day.

Overloaded Sugarcane Trucks 3

Really all these sugarcane trucks are so dangerous. How they are allowed to continue day in and day out to operate like this is astounding. 

The 4th picture, if you look closely, has a net on the back. A flimsy little net to hold all that weight in.  As if something so weak can hold back a wave of sugarcane if it decides to spill out like what happened in this picture:

Are there regulations for these trucks? Likely. I have no idea what they are though. And for sure these trucks are not following those regulations. It's obvious just at looking at them.

Sugarcane Truck Spill

Every time I see an overloaded sugarcane truck speed by visions of destruction dance in my head. Last night my dreams became reality.

It's not that I wish for any of this but when you overload a truck with sugarcane and do not properly secure it then what is to expected but accidents like this? The fact that many overloaded trucks like this make it safely to their destinations is nothing less than a miracle.

Overloaded Sugarcane Trucks 2

Three days ago was the one year anniversary of this blog. I would like all readers to know that despite the Philippines being officially not a "shithole" it is still polluted, governed incompetently, and the inhabitants are prone to being very, very silly which means this blog will be continuing unless something unexpectedly bad or comically tragic were to happen like if I were riding along in a car and an overloaded sugarcane truck spilled its contents all over said car thereby sweetly crushing me to death.

Don't think it can't happen to me. Or you.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/regions/635051/4-family-members-killed-as-cane-truck-falls-on-car/story/

And now for a selection of photographs of overloaded sugarcane trucks.

Overloaded Sugarcane Trucks

Overloaded trucks, jeepneys, and tricycles are a common sight on any road in the Philippines.  Large loads precariously teetering on the roofs of these vehicles are enough to make anyone scratch their head.  Why?  And how?  Sometimes these items are secured with nothing more but the flimsiest of paper strings.

Overloaded sugarcane trucks pose a different problem because the whole process is overseen and sanctioned by the sugar company.  If the sugar company really had any qualms about overloaded trucks and the danger and waste they pose then they would reprimand the drivers and the loaders.  But everyday they keep coming.

Finally! A reasonably loaded truck.  Probably the last haul which is why it is not overloaded.

Overloading the truck can have dire consequences.  Many of the trucks really put the pedal to the metal and barrel on down the highway. Sometimes they do not even turn on their headlights at night.  As a consequence trucks tip over and sugarcane spills out on the street.

What a hazard.  Not to mention all that money lost when the sugarcane falls onto the road.