Antique mayor’s bodyguard gives up life to save his boss, passengers

ILOILO CITY—Bennie Dable was clinging to a capsized speedboat with nine other passengers in the waters off Sebaste town in Antique on Holy Thursday when he decided to give his lifejacket to his boss, Mayor Jonathan Tan of Pandan town in Antique.

Tan had decided to swim to the shore to seek help minutes after his speedboat was hit by huge and strong waves and capsized at around 10:50 a.m., throwing the passengers into the water.

Minutes after Tan and another passenger Toribio Barrientos Jr. started swimming, Dable, 50, convulsed and died.

“He (Dable) was the only one wearing a lifejacket but he gave it to Mayor so that the other passengers can be saved,” said Jesus Dioso, Pandan public relations officer, citing accounts of the passengers.

Tan and Barrientos swam nearly two hours until they were picked up by fishermen 200 meters from the shoreline of Barangay Aras-arasan of Sebaste town.

The mayor, with fishermen on board four motorboats, returned to the area where the speedboat capsized and rescued the other survivors.

Among the survivors were movie actresses Bianca Manalo and Ehra Madrigal.

Dioso confirmed that Manalo is the girlfriend of Tan, 41, who is estranged from his wife.

An initial report of the Sebaste police station did not mention the presence of two actresses but the Philippine National Police in Western Visayas confirmed it on Good Friday.

Senior Insp. Glen Jaromay, Sebaste police chief, said the actresses were not at the coastline, where the survivors were brought, when policemen arrived.

“They were brought to Pandan before we arrived. We only learned about it on posts by residents in social media,” Jaromay told the INQUIRER.