Vendor, son, 4, killed in road mishap

[Lacoste]

Fatal Accident. Jenalyn Estenzo and her four-year-old son Jay were run over by a dump truck in Maguikay, Mandaue City yesterday morning. They died on the spot. Their bodies were brought to the Mandaue City Hospital where Jenalyn’s husband Agustin and daughter Roda identified them. (Sun.Star Foto/Allan Cuizon)

A MOTHER and her four-year-old son were fatally run over by a 10-wheel truck while crossing a national highway in Mandaue City yesterday morning.
Jenalyn Estenzo, 35, and her son Jay were pinned under the rear wheels of the truck on M.L. Quezon St.
Jenalyn and Jay were together selling lanzones when the accident happened at 10:45 a.m. about 50 meters from the Maguikay flyover.
Truck driver Anastacio Hermida, 49, who was arrested, said he didn’t see the two crossing the road.
He had just moved after he stopped to give way to a van coming out of a department store’s driveway when he felt the truck (ABF 6468) ran over something.
“Mao lang gyu’y pag-abante nako ato (It happened just when I continued driving),” he said in an interview inside the Traffic Management Unit of the Mandaue City Police Office where he was detained.
He was bound for Naga City after delivering sand to Barangay Tingub, Mandaue City.
After stopping, he locked the doors as some bystanders began to climb the truck to maul him, he said.
Agustin Estenzo, 37, rushed from work to the City Hospital only to see his wife and son covered in blood-stained white cloth inside the morgue.
Jay, the youngest of his four children, usually was with his mother as she sold lanzones on the sidewalk. 
“Magpuyo ra man to siya (He didn’t like moving around),” Agustin said.
Some witnesses said Jenalyn was running after the boy when the accident happened.
The couple’s three other children attend school. The eldest, aged 12 years old, studies in Catmon, Cebu.
Agustin said his wife and Jay were still in the house in Sitio Calderohan, Barangay Maguikay when he left for work past 8 a.m. He is a machine operator in a food factory located in the same barangay.
He said Jenalyn usually left the house with Jay around 8:45 a.m.
He and Jenalyn, who came from Negros Occidental, had been married for 12 years. 
Asked whether he will press charges against the driver, Agustin said he will talk with him first.
PO2 Ruben Dayon said Hermida, a resident of Naga City, Cebu, can be charged with reckless imprudence resulting in multiple homicide.
Agustin, interviewed by reporters, said his employer promised to help settle the case with the Estenzo family.
His 20-year-old son was with him when the accident happened. He said he has five children.
Agustin said he only started working for his current employer less than two weeks ago.
Before returning to Cebu last October, he drove a truck in Mindanao.
He said it was his first time to meet an accident on the road in his 27 years of driving a truck.
Glenn Antigua, operations chief of the Traffic Enforcement Agency of Mandaue, advised pedestrians, including street vendors, to seek help from a traffic enforcer when crossing a highway.
A traffic enforcer, he said, is assigned near the accident area.
Antigua said putting a pedestrian lane in the area requires permission from the Department of Public Works and Highways as M.L. Quezon St. is a national road.