Tragic seas of the Philippines

Commercial passenger ships in the country are 25 to 30 years old, and are aptly called 'floating coffins'.


On December 20, 1987, Dona Paz, a Philippine passenger ferry which carried over 8,800 barrels of oil, collided with Vector, a tanker, in the Tablas Strait, off Mindoro, in southern Luzon. Dona Paz turned into cinders, and the sea around it into a hellish inferno that prevented rescuers from plucking out moribund survivors. After the accident, 4,536 passengers were declared dead. It was the world's worst peacetime disaster at sea, surpassing Titanic's death toll of 1,500 in 1912.

The official capacity of Dona Paz was 1,500 people. The number of its dead showed it was overcrowded three hundred times more, a common situation in the Philippines during summer and Christmas. The majority of Filipinos are vulnerable because they depend on ageing and overcrowded ships and ferries for transport in and out of their country's 7,000 islands.

The magnitude of Dona Paz's death toll has always been compared to other worst sea disasters at wartime. Dona Paz approximated by 50 per cent the 9,343 people who drowned in the Baltic Sea on January 30, 1945 (just before the end of World War II) when a Soviet submarine sent three torpedoes that hit Wilhelm Gustloff, a German cruise ship carrying refugees from East Prussia. It was one of three ships commissioned to evacuate almost two million individuals from Danzig (Gdansk) then.

Dona Paz's death toll was only a thousand more than the 3,000 people who were killed when the same Russian submarine torpedoed General von Steuben on February 10, 1945, and 2000 less than the 6,000 who were killed with the sinking of SS Goya on March 16, 1945. The ships were part of Gustloff's mission.

Paz's death toll was also one thousand less than the 5,500 victims of attack by Tradewind, a British submarine, when it torpedoed Junyo Maru, off the Sumatra Coast on September 18, 1944. The Japanese ship carried 4,000 Indonesians, 2,200 Dutch, English, Australian and American nationals who comprised Japan's forced labour for the Pakabaru railroad.

"The Dona Paz incident was a wake up call for all of us," recalled Leandro Mendoza, the transportation secretary. In 1987, Philippine authorities promptly called for a review of regulations and changes in policy regarding overloading and seaworthiness. But a total of 1,103 passengers died in 11 more incidents in Philippine waters from 1988 to 2003.

On October 24, 1988, 300 were killed as Dona Marilyn, a sister ferry of Dona Paz, sank off Leyte, in central Philippines.

In 1993, 279 pilgrims drowned when a floating pagoda collapsed during a religious festival while it was being towed along the Bocaue river, in northern suburban Bulacan.

On December 2, 1994, 140 were killed as Cebu City, a ferry boat, collided with a Singaporean tanker off Manila Bay. In 1995, 31 were killed as fire broke out aboard Kimelody Cristy, a ferry boat. On February 19, 1996, 50 people were killed as Gretchen I, a ferry, sank in central Philippines. On September 20, 1998, 100 people were killed as MV Princess of the Orient sank off Lucena, in southern Luzon.

Wooden cargo

On April 12, 2000, 143 people were killed when Arahada, a wooden cargo ship from the Philippines bound for Malaysia capsized off Jolo in the southern Philippines.

Passengers destined for Malaysia were picked up at sea from small boats. They were placed on one side of the boat, causing it to tip and capsize. And, most recently, on May 25, 2003, 28 people drowned after a wooden hulled San Nicholas collided with Super Ferry 12, and sank off Corregidor Island, at Manila Bay. Because of a storm, captains of both ships had complained of zero visibility.

"These mishaps annoy me. These perennial accidents can and must be stopped," complained President Gloria Arroyo in June 2003.

Over a period of 25 years, since 1979, ships in the Philippines have met accidents due to storms, gales, fire, water-leaks, collision, skipper error, and age. But passengers were killed mainly because of overcrowding, which has been blamed on the ship owners' greed; the captain's gross infringement of maritime regulations, and the coast guard officers' willingness to connive. Survivors complained of ship captains who abandoned them; lack of life vests and boats for everyone on board.

By promoting safer sea voyages, the government centred its attention on Cebu, in the central Philippines, where the offices of 70 per cent of the domestic shipping operations nationwide are based.

Arroyo called an end to the operation of wooden-hulled vessels as passenger ships. Commercial passenger ships in the country are 25 to 30 years old, and are aptly called 'floating coffins'.

Arroyo also called for the training of Philippine Coast Guard officers for the enforcement of maritime safety standards and overloading rules, and for proper rescue operations during accidents.