MANKAYAN, Benguet – Combined police and military operatives and volunteer rescuers were able to recover two more cadavers stocked bndernneath the huge volume of drbirs that buried a whole community in sitio Elizabeth, barangay Taneg here at around 10:20 am Monday
Superintendent Jonathan G. Calixto, commanding officer of the Benguet Public Safety Company, said on the eleventh day of search, rescue and retrieval operations, they were able to recover the decomposing bodies of Rocky Guerrrero Mangrubang, 19, single and a native of Dipaculao, Aurora and Ronald Paul Caluten Angel, 19, single and a native of Banooy, Taneg, Mankayan, Benguet.
Mangrubang was reportedly identified by his father while Angel was identified through his cedula recovered inside his wallet which was recovered in the same site where their bodies were recovered.
Calixto cited the recovery of the bodies of the pocket miners brought down to 5 more miners who are missing from the same site.
He said the more than 500 rescuers composed f police, military, volunteer rescuers and the small-scale mining community will continue to hasten the search and retrieval operations for them to account for the remaining missing miners and the members of their families.
According to him, what makes the operations difficult is the presence of big boulders that require the use of explosives courtesy of the small-scale miners themselves in order to for them to be able to advance to the shanties that were buried by the huge landslide.