A motorcyclist drowned in a flooded Virac road last Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, while a San Miguel resident remains missing after being swept away by the strong current when the Bato river burst its banks due to heavy rains brought by the shear line.
According to a report from the Virac Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, the emergency responder on duty received a report from the PDRRMO regarding a person who was carried away by floodwaters along the road between Bigaa and Hicming,
A concerned citizen also arrived to relay the same information while a government employee also reported the same to the MDRRMO head.
When the response team arrived at the scene, local residents and bystanders had already located and retrieved the unconscious body of the victim, Ray Bryan Vega Tesorero, 32, a native of Agban, Baras who had married a resident of Hicming.
An employee of the Eastern Bicol Medical Center and Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), Bienvenido Panti Jr., was already performing CPR on the victim.
The MDRRMO team immediately assessed the victim and continued performing CPR while en route to the provincial hospital but Tesorero was declared dead on arrival by the attending physician.
The victim’s aunt who was at the scene told the team that Ray Bryan had just come from work and was riding his motorcycle when he attempted to cross the flooded road in Bigaa near the former feed mill.
The strong current apparently caused him and his vehicle to fall, with the victim hitting his head on a hard object before the flood water carried him away.
In Obo, San Miguel, one person remains missing after four boatmen trying to secure their two cascos (wooden canoe) were swept away by the raging Bato river.
The four residents – Jerome Tabor, Angelo Villegas, Rene Tindugan and Jose Bernal – were tying the cascos to coconut trees when they were trapped by the rising flood waters.
Two men, Michael Cervantes and Gerald Torrente, came to their rescue but they, too, were apparently taken by the flood.
Five of them were subsequently rescued by personnel of the MDRRMO San Miguel. the Philippine Army and San Miguel MPS at the vicinity of Sipi, Bato but Bernal remains missing as of presstime.
Flooding and landslides were reported in Caramoran, Pandan, Bagamanoc, Panganiban, Viga, Bato and Virac, temporarily cutting off traffic to the northern towns.