Category: disasters

stop sulpicio?

the exchange in the comments section of manolo‘s post supporting the blogswarm “stop sulpicio lines” is worth sharing – an edited version, of course, highlighting why the stopping of sulpicio is problematic.

banat ni djb rizalist (bully for him ;)

Considering the volume of cargo and passenger traffic that Sulpicio Lines handles, it is inconceivablethat their operations would be entirely taken out…that would cause a major economic dislocation, not to say suffering on the part of many impoverished families and big and small businesses.

Could the upshot (of) a successful campaign against Sulpicio then merely result in the government taking it over, as GMA has hinted? Would that not conceivably result in some even bigger tragedy, considering that the typhoon season has barely begun? I’m mad at Sulpicio Lines too, but what exactly are we asking for here?”

susog ni bencard:

given that sulpicio is the ONLY major shipping line in the philippines providing relatively cheap transportation to and from each major island of the country, how could you afford to stop its operations instantaneously, even if you could legally? do you think “accidents” would not occur under someone else’s control, including the government’s? meanwhile, should life for all the people and families depending on the company be put on hold while a suitable replacement is being determined?”

agree si dominique:

More than punitive measures we need remedial measures to address the shipping industry, in terms of safety, competition, and cost.

suggest ni cvj:

Since the government needs funds, taking over Sulpicio so that its earnings from operations can fund the improvement of the shipping industry, instead of further enriching the Go Family, should be looked into. Perhaps it can temporarily be attached to the Philippine navy, which also need ships.

agree si leytenian:

This tragedy is not only domestic. The history and bad reputation of this company will actually scare foreign capital and hurt our credibility even further. Let’s do what’s right for the country and for the majority. (Under the government) the students and seniors will enjoy a discounted rates, at the same time small businesses can be subsidized thru discounted shipping of goods. The government can hire more employees…

unimpressed si kg:

government takeover? yeah winston garcia should do it but with the same fleet? rejects junk and retirable vessels, what can a government takeover do. are we back to the question of nationalization and denationalization.

say ni bencard:

cvj, while the navy may have the knowhow to sail a ship for sea battle, i don’t know if it has the expertise to operate a shipping line to transport passengers and cargo. it sounds “simple, really” but i think there’s more to sailing a commercial ship than just keeping it afloat and reaching its destination. so you guys think the government can handle it better, huh? can you name one government-run common carrier that operates efficiently and prosperously? are you familiar with the manila railroad co. and what happened to it after the politicians took over?

balik ni cvj:

The logic of resorting to privatization because we fear the incompetence of government has reached its limit in the case of Sulpicio. We have seen how market forces and private competition are useless against the negligence of an oligopoly. In any Society, government is the last resort to handle these kinds of failures, so at some point,we have to tackle the problem of government incompetence head on. Failing to rejuvenate government would leave us at the point where the public has no choice but to tolerate the practices of Oligarchs like the Go family.

sa ganang akin cvj and leytenian have a point, but it aint gonna happen – there’s simply no rejuvenating government overnight; maybe in 2010 ;)

samantala it doesn’t have to mean we’re tolerating the practices of oligarchs like the go family. not if sulpicio is allowed to resume operations only under certain conditions:

1. ititigil nito ang paghahabla sa pagasa at ang pagbintang kay god. sa halip ay aaminin, aakuin, ang major responsibility for the disaster, magpa-public apology, and magpa-promise to indemnify both survivors and victims’ families in appropriate amounts, the records to be open to public scrutiny

2. upang ma-break ang pattern of disasters na associated na with “sulpicio lines,” the owners will change the name of the shipping line and the ships – enough already with the donyas and prinsesas – again in the full glare of the public eye, sabay upgrade its safety standards, thus signalling a rebirth, a new beginning, and hopefully better karma all around for a change.

how many deaths will it take…

my mind keeps singing to me these haunting lines from bob dylan’s sixties classic “blowing in the wind”:

…how many ears must one man have
before he can hear people cry
…how many deaths will it take till he knows
that too many people havedied…”

too many of our people have died, too many more of our people will die, if this fourth disaster courtesy of the notoriously careless sulpicio lines is allowed, as usual, to go unpunished.

writes marlen v. ronquillo of the manila times:

From time immemorial, the Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI), Philippine-version, has been identified with two things. It is either a fangless tiger or a board that almost always tilts to the side of a negligent shipowner.

Nothing on the voluminous archives of the BMI inquiries reveal sympathy and empathy for the victims of sea tragedies. The anti-victim tilt is understandable. It is the scum of the earth, the poor, thewretched that board the overloaded floating coffins. They can perish at sea and no one-after the initial media hysteria-will mourn their passing.

The owners of the shipping lines are rich, powerful, politically connected. They have lawyers and political sponsors, if they are not big political families themselves. The past and present names of Philippine shipping giants, including the responsible ones, are a collection of Philippine society’sWho’s Who: Aboitiz, Escano, Madrigal, Chiongbian, Go, Ledesma, etc….

The inquiries and recommendations of BMIs, past and present, have a pattern. Ship tragedies, even those that kill passengers by the thousands, are always ” acts of nature.”

Shipownersand operators, if they are cited at all, are mostly given a slap on the wrists.

It is the shameless and almost criminal pandering of past and present BMIs to the interest of shipowners and operators that provides the ideal environment for the creation of special admiralty courts. These are the courts that try maritime cases.

England and the other First World countries with long maritime traditions have these courts. Maritime justice is rendered fairly and swiftly. In England, the courts always tend to rule in favor of the victims, not the shipowners and operators, even if this means a hemorrhage at the Lloyd’s of London, which insures the ships, cargo and passengers.

If there is an ideal time and context to create Philippine admiralty courts, it is now.”

suing sulpicio

ngayon ko lang nalaman, salamat sa inquirer, na ito palang sulpicio lines ay napakasuwerte.

in ALL three disasters – the dona paz (4000 dead), the dona marilyn (250), andthe princess of the orient (150) – sulpicio lines was CLEARED of criminal responsibility for the deaths of the passengers.

On Dec. 20, 1987, a Sulpicio Lines ferry, the MV Doña Paz, collided with a Caltex-hired oil tanker, MT Vector, at Tablas Strait dividing Mindoro and Marinduque, an inter-island route wide enough for both vessels to pass. Only 26 people were rescued (24 passengers of the Doña Paz and two crew members of the Vector) after both ships sank.

The sinking of the Doña Paz, which was ferrying passengers from Tacloban City to Manila for the Christmas holiday, is considered the world’s worst peacetime sea tragedy that left more than 4,000 people dead.

On Oct. 29, 1988, the Board of Marine Inquiry “absolved” Sulpicio Lines of any responsibility and found the Vector at fault for the collision. In 1992, however, the Manila Regional Trial Court held Sulpicio Lines “solely responsible” for the accident and ordered the shipping firm to pay P1.2 million to the heirs of two victims.

Four years later, however, the Court of Appeals absolved the shipping company of any liability and laid the blame on the Vector and Caltex Philippines. In January 2006, the appellate court cleared Caltex Philippines of any liability for the 1987 sea tragedy.

By then, many relatives of the victims had settled out of court.

The latest court ruling involving Doña Paz was handed down in September 2006. The Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling ordering Sulpicio Lines to pay P14.9 million to the family of a geodetic engineer who died in the maritime disaster. Even so, the ruling still did not assign criminal responsibility to Sulpicio Lines and merely found the shipping company guilty of breach of contract for failing to bring the engineer to Manila.

Less than a year after the Doña Paz sank, another ill-fated vessel of Sulpicio Lines made the headlines as Typhoon “Unsang” lashed Eastern Visayas on Oct. 24, 1988. A day before, Storm Signal No. 2 was raised over Leyte as early as 5:30 a.m. The following day, Storm Signal No. 3 was hoisted over Leyte, but authorities allowed the Doña Marilyn to sail from Manila to Tacloban. The Doña Marilyn encountered huge waves and capsized, leaving at least 250 people dead.

The Board of Marine Inquiry later concluded that the sinking of the Doña Marilynwas a force majeure or “an act of God” and that no one was responsible for the sea tragedy.

Ten years later, it was the largest ship on the Sulpicio Lines fleet that sank at the height of a typhoon. On Sept. 18, 1998, Typhoon “Gading” lashed at the MV Princess of the Orient, which was allowed to sail from Manila to Cebu City. The 24-year-old Princess of the Orient went down near the mouth of Manila Bay. At least 150 were confirmed dead.

In September 2000, the Department of Justice junked the criminal case against Sulpicio Lines in connection with the sinking of the Princess of the Orient, saying the shipping firm could not be held criminally liable for the death of scores of passengers.”

ano ba yan! ang palusot na force majeure or act of god is not valid, not when any of those three disasters could have been avoided – in the case of the Dona Paz, if officers and crew had been more alert and competent and the ship better equipped with navigational aids; in the case of the dona marilyn and the princess of the orient, if typhoon warnings had been heeded and the ships forbidden from leaving port in the first place, as in the case of the princess of the stars, for which heads should roll, as blogger anna de brux insists.

walang duda, the courts and the department of justice are biased in favor of sulpicio lines.  why? i think because blogger benignO is correct:

Heads will not roll in this case (as in others) because Ces Drilon was not on that ship”.

a statement not in bad taste at all; rather, a painful political truth. it’s a class thing. kung pang-mayaman ang barkong yan, at tipong sosyal ang mga pasaherong nadisgrasya, tiyak, walang kalaban-laban ang sulpicio, at tulad ng white star line na may-ari ng titanic, it would be forced to make major improvements in its safety standards and operational procedures before being trusted with the lives of the rich and sosyal again.

to make matters worse for the families of the masa victims of sulpicio’s princess of the stars, recovered bodies of their loved ones are being buried without efforts to first identify them through proper forensic procedures, something that would be unheard of if the victims were well-off and well-connected. what a horrible state of affairs.