Philippine SEAG squash team shaken but safe from bus collision

KUALA LUMPUR – The Philippine squash team remains ready to battle after escaping unhurt from a road mishap involving two buses transporting the Philippine, Thai and Myanmar squads to the National Squash Centre in Bukit Jalil Monday morning.

David William Pelino, Juan Rafael Yam, Reymark Begornia, Yvonne Alyssa Dalida, Isabelle Gotuaco, Robert Andrew Garcia, Joan Arebado and Jemyca Aribado were all safe.

The Thais were likewise safe but not some Myanmar players who had to be treated at the National Sports Institute.

The men’s and women’s doubles set in the morning were postponed due to the accident. Squash action instead was to fire off in the afternoon with the mixed doubles play.

The Philippines was good for three bronze medals in the last SEAG courtesy of the men’s team of Garcia, Pelino and Ricky Espinola, the doubles pair of Espinola-Pelino and Aribado in women’s singles.

Malaysia is out to keep the overall championship it won in Singapore in 2015 with a haul of four golds and two silvers.

"We're putting the competition on hold until the players get medical clearance to play," said SEA Games squash technical officer K. Sivanesan in an on-line report. "We're rescheduling and we expect things to be up and running after lunch."

"What happened was just unfortunate. It was an accident after all," said Filipino team manager Vince Abad Santos in the same on-line report.

"There were two buses. We were in the first bus together with the Thailand team while Myanmar was in the bus behind us. We also had a police escort and everything seemed fine until the second bus hit us strongly from behind.

"Some of the Myanmar players had some slight injuries but my players are all fine and we're still ready to play."