CAUAYAN CITY, Isabela – A father and his son died while his other child went missing in a drowning incident along Ganano River, Barangay Santa Maria, Alicia, Isabela on Wednesday.
The father, identified as Norman Balinang, 42, along with his 16-year-old and eight-year-old sons, was on a Holy Week vacation in the place when the drowning incident happened.
The three victims reportedly went beside the river when the eight-year-old boy jumped to the water, thinking it was shallow. The boy though failed to come out.
The 16-year-old boy dived into the river’s water to rescue his brother but failed. Then, the father tried to rescue them but he also failed due to the deep river's water.
What happened was they all drowned.
Village Chairman Jaime Narne led the rescue operation to locate the victims.
The rescuers recovered the lifeless body of the father a few minutes after the incident before they retrieved the body of the 16-year-old boy. The eight-year-old was still missing.
Narne said that search and recovery operations for the body of the eight-year-old child are still ongoing.