It’s been more than a year since journalist and professor Lourdes “Chit” Estella-Simbulan was killed in a road crash, and at the posthumous launching of her book Friday, the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) pledged to reduce deaths due to road collisions by half within 10 years.

“If nothing is done to mitigate the situation, this disaster work will continuously rob us of 38 lives every day such that in 2020 around 300,000 would have died,” assistant secretary Dante Lantin said at the book launch, which was attended by Chit’s family and friends.

Lantin said the agency has been undertaking educational campaigns on road safety “to reduce by 50 percent the rate of fatalities by 2020.”

Known by her friends and readers as Chit Estella, the victim was a trustee of the news organization VERA Files and also taught journalism at the University of the Philippines (UP). Estella was killed on May 13, 2011 after a taxi she was riding in was hit by two buses along Commonwealth Avenue.

On Friday, her book “Chit Estella: A reader on media ethics, people's issues and governance” was launched at the College of Mass Communication in UP Diliman, where she taught for many years.

The book is a compilation of Estella’s articles written for VERA Files, the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, and other news organizations.

Among the articles in the book are those on former president Fidel Ramos, labor leader Felixberto Olalia, and the late spokesperson of the communist movement Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal. The book also includes Estella’s unpublished works.

During the book launch, Philippine Daily Inquirer deskperson Monica Feria expressed hopes that Estella's students “will take in (the book) as an assignment that she's left behind.” The book’s publisher, the Center for People Empowerment in Governance, described the compilation as Estela's "stories of the silenced and disenfranchised."

Not an accident

Estella was killed when the Abu Abbey taxi she was riding got grazed on the right side by a red Nova Auto Transport Bus before being rammed at the rear by a Universal Guiding Star (UGS) bus.

Since Estella’s death, her husband Roland Simbulan has actively campaigned for road safety together with DOTC officials.

He has filed charges in the Quezon City trial court against UGS driver Daniel Espinosa and Nova Auto driver Victor Ancheta for reckless imprudence resulting in homicide and damage to property. The accused drivers are out of jail on bail.
 
“(Road safety) is everybody’s business. May right tayo to use our roads for commuting (safely). (Especially that) the leading cause of death worldwide is road crashes,” said Simbulan, who now heads the road safety organization Families of Road Victims and Survivors.
 
“There is no such thing as an ‘accident,” said Simbulan, who is also a development studies professor in UP Manila. “There is a cause,” he added, saying his wife was not killed in an accident but in a “road crash.”
 
He said road collisions are caused by various factors such as lack of training among drivers, recklessness, and faulty engines of vehicles.
 
Simbulan said he is coordinating with the DOTC in promoting road safety awareness through campaigns such as the “Run for Road Safety” launched in May.  

“Common-death avenue”

The DOTC associate secretary noted that Commonwealth Avenue – dubbed the “killer highway” in Quezon City – is also known as “common-death avenue.”
 
“(Road collisions) seemingly have lost its shock value among the public through the years. Parang naging ordinary na lamang, especially along Commonwealth where Chit met her final destiny,” Lantin said.

“Common death avenue kasi common na ang death dito due to road crashes,” he added.

In 2011, the year Estella was killed, the Philippine National Police recorded 1,399 fatalities nationwide in road accidents, the DOTC official said.

However, he said road accidents are vastly underreported so the agency multiplies the figure by 10, before computing the estimated increase of 15% every year. He said the figure of 300,000 potential fatalities nationwide covers the period from 2010 to 2020.

“We believe road safety is everybody’s concern and everybody should be involved in it,” Lantin added. – YA, GMA News