By the Bohol Chronicle
Fourteen persons mostly from Bohol were rescued, including two who were hospitalized, after their motor banca capsized off Cordova town, Cebu Tuesday afternoon.
One of the passengers had insisted on renting the MB Jan-Jan to ferry them to Cebu from Tubigon town on Tuesday afternoon because she had to catch a flight to Manila from the Mactan Cebu International Airport in the evening.
The boat left Tubigon at 1 p.m. Tuesday when it encountered strong winds and big waves, causing it to capsize in the Hilutungan channel around 3 p.m.
Four crewmembers and the 11 passengers clung to the capsized boat for almost 13 hours.
However, three of the crewmembers – boat owner-operator Cornelio Albura, 32, Mark Cabenes, 22, and Avelino Ojina, 35 – decided to get help and swam towards the nearest shore in Barangay (village) Suba-Basbas, Lapu-Lapu using a floating log.
The following day, at 3 a.m., divers at the Cebu Marine Beach Resort found the three crewmembers drifting and turned them over to Suba-Basbas barangay captain Gregoria Justiniane.
The 11 others who were left clinging to the capsized banca had by then drifted off the nearby village of Alegria, Cordova town, Cebu, where a fisherman rescued them.
Senior Police Officer 1 Ebenezer Cadelinia of Cordova police station said a fisherman using an outrigger boat found them.
The other survivors were identified as crewmember Samuel Rostata, 48, of Tinanglan, Tubigon and passengers Violeta Toston, 54, Getafe Bohol; Brian Gallon, 25, Loay, Bohol; Mary Ann Gealon, 37, Maribojoc, Bohol; Janeth Ordeneza, 42, Cagayan de Oro City; Jade Bacon, 25, Carcar, Cebu; Elizabeth Abrio, 39, Barangay Basak-San Nicolas, Cebu City; Julieta Garay, 50, Calape, Bohol; Felix Infanzo, 29, Inabanga, Bohol; Samson Bolido, 49, Iloilo; and Maria Roselyn Simbahon, 39, Loon, Bohol.
Because the outrigger could only accommodate two to three passengers, the fisherman decided to bring them to shore in batches, Cadelinia said.
He said they were not able to identify the fisherman because he had left when the police and the paramedics of the emergency Rescue Unit Foundation (ERUF) arrived at the shore.
Gealon and Garay were brought to the Lapu-Lapu district hospital because they were in a weakened state.
The hospital recommended that Gealon, who was injured in her left arm, be transferred to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City, where she was reported to be in a stable condition.
The other survivors, who also bore minor wounds in their hands from clinging for over 12 hours to the rope on the capsized boat, were treated at the barangay health center in Alegria.
Cadelinia said they learned 10 of the passengers were part of those stranded at the Tubigon port bound for Cebu City.
Simbahon, one of the passengers, was the one who had insisted to go to Cebu because she had to catch a flight to Manila and a connecting flight to Qatar where her husband was waiting for her.
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Topic: Boat From Tubigon, Bohol Capsized (Read 1098 times)