The Sickening Aftermath

Written on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 7:28 am | by Ding G. Gagelonia

Allow me to begin this piece with an expression of deepest condolences to our FV administrator and editor in chief, Nick, for what must surely be the almost unfathomable grief he is nursing over the feared death of one of his cousins in sinking of Sulpicio Lines’ Princess of the Stars ferry off Sibuyan and Romblon islands.

But as we at FV commiserate with Nick, this writer is really feeling sick in the gut over the aftermath of this fifth (not fourth as earlier thought) ship sinking involving Sulpicio Lines in a span of 20 years.

I said sick to the gut because as I was scanning today’s early morning news, one horrid new detail jumped out to me: now even gin is being used to kill the stench from the fast decomposing recovered cadavers from the sinking of Princess of the Stars.

Overnight the number of bodies recovered rose dramatically to at least 157 with navy frogmen retrieving 87. The number of missing and feared dead, including Nick’s cousin, still stands at more than 650 while only 46 survivors have been counted .

If this is not sickening, nothing else is, with once vibrant hopeful lives reduced to cold statistics and the future of the loved ones left behind now blanketed by despair.

The Missing

We do not want to add to the fury, but yet another data this writer has unearthed is that in 1989 the Supreme Court (as recorded in the ‘Ang Marino’ seafarers newsletter) “ordered Sulpicio Lines to pay the family of two victims who filed suit P736,480 each in damages. “Shipping industry observers said the decision “paves the way for the favorable disposition of many similar cases pending in lower courts,” the Ang Marino account says.

“Awarded damages were the family of the victims Sebastian Canezal, a 47-year-old public school teacher, and his 11-year old daughter Corazon, one of the few families that filed a complaint for damages arising from breach of contract of carriage against Sulpicio Lines. Most of the victims opted for out-of court settlements.”

The report ends saying, “The court found Sulpicio Lines liable particularly for overloading the ship having an estimated 4,000 passengers with only 1,493 listed in the passenger manifest.”

These details tell us then that had all of the families of the estimated 4,000 fatalities in the Dona Paz tragedy filed suit and were similarly awarded damages on the basis of the precedent-setting SC edict, Sulpicio Lines would be in the hock for a whopping P2,945,920,000!

No amount will bring the dead back to life but Sulpicio Lines would surely have gone bankrupt and be unable to continue what many surely consider its passenger-killing rampage these past two decades.

Consider this and let’s make a bee-line to the nearest comfort room, or church, before we all puke or go into our own murderous spree.

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About The Author: Ding G. Gagelonia is a journalist of some 30 years, having worked in both radio and TV news and public affairs since his teens. Ding Gagelonia now writes independently and does corporate communications consulting. He has two kids, Felice and Luis. His journalist blog is at midfield.wordpress.com

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