Motorcycle drag racer, tricycle passenger die in Cotabato accident

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Authorities are working to address the persistent issue of daily motorcycle drag races in Libungan town, Cotabato province, where a motorist and a tricycle passenger were killed in an accident during daytime last Saturday.

In separate reports on Monday, the Libungan Municipal Police Station and the Cotabato Provincial Police Office identified the fatalities as John Lloyd Calawigan, a known illegal motorcycle drag racer, and Genevieve Villela, a passenger of a tricycle that he rammed from behind while racing with other motorists at a stretch of the Cotabato-Davao Highway in Barangay Ulamian.

Residents of barangays in Libungan located along the highway have long been complaining about the noise of motorcycles with modified mufflers that drag racers use and the extreme hazards of their activities, in total disregard of state traffic laws.

Radio reports here on Monday stated that two members of the Libungan municipal council, Kristine Cadava and Nikiki Dela Serna, are to deliver privilege speeches about the unabated illegal motorcycle drag racing in their municipality, as prelude to their possible sponsorship of an ordinance against it.

Villela’s husband, Florante, was badly hurt in the accident, now confined in a hospital.

Local officials had promised to help pay for the medication bills of the injured Florante, who was driving their tricycle en route to somewhere from a remote barangay in Libungan when Calawigan hit it at extremely high speed while other racers were trailing by.

Barangay officials and intelligence operatives of Army units in Libungan and in nearby Midsayap, Aleosan and Pigcawayan towns, all in the first district of Cotabato, had told reporters that informants, among them members of legitimate motorcycle clubs, had confided that some drag racers in the four towns, mostly adolescents, are hooked to illegal drugs and are involved in trafficking of shabu in remote barangays in the province.