Researcher perish in river accident in Basilan 

BASILAN  --- A researcher was accidentally drowned in a river while on a weekend outing with co-workers in an upland area in Maluso town in this province Saturday.

The 26-year-old Desire Mae Somobay was swept away by rampaging waters flowing downstream the Mahayahay River in a hinterland eco-tourism site in Maluso that suddenly overflowed after a brief but heavy rain fell on tropical rainforests in mountains upstream.

Somobay belonged to a team commissioned by the Department of Science and Technology-Food and Nutrition Research Institute to conduct a field baseline study on the socio-economic profile of Maluso.

Maluso, one of the 11 towns in this province, was once a bastion of the Abu Sayyaf and now a “peace zone” whose local government unit twice received in the past two years the Seal of Good Local Governance from Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año.

Maluso Mayor Hanie Bud said Sunday he is thankful to the municipal police and the Army’s 68^th Infantry Battalion for helping retrieve the cadaver of Somobay, immediately turned over to her family in Zamboanga City. 

“It was an accident. She and her co-workers went there for a weekend outing,” Bud said.

A companion of Somobay who was saved from getting drowned by responding barangay officials was rushed to a hospital for treatment of injuries sustained when she hit boulders while being forced downstream by floodwaters.