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.

the plot thickens

a conspiracy theory has it that ces drilon unwittingly walked into a trap sprung to give the armed forces reason to start another all-out-war in mindanao, win pogi points with gma who in turn wins pogi points with george w. bush, and, incidentally, discredit mayor alvarez isnaji who’s running for governor in the armm elections.

it would explain why the situation was resolved so quickly, without serious harm to ces and co. but i have a hard time wrapping my mind around such a theory mainly because it would have hinged on ces or some bigfish like her being dumb enough to make kagat the bait of an exclusive interview with a surrendering abu sayyaf. it would also mean that the orenas needn’t have come up with ransom money, as ces and co. would could have been released anyway in time for gma’s trip to mindanao. unless of course the idea was to harass ces’ kapamilya, abs-cbn, into coughing up the millions, pero the kapamilya balked, strictly adhering daw to the no-ransom policy, so that ces’ true pamilya had to raise the first five million. unless of course abs-cbn is the source of the two duffle bags of money that pnp chief razon knew nothing about daw?

and then again maybe abs-cbn was part of the conspiracy? this would explain whythe police, and maria ressa, stopped ces from answering questions at her first presscon in zamboanga, questions that were only for razon to answer daw?

will we ever know what really happened? will anc ever tell us what it knows? will we ever believe anc again?

oh, and dan mariano of manila times has one last question : who’s footing the bill for that ten-day suspense serial that had us all glued to radio and tv for the latest news?

Thousands of police and soldiers were mobilized for operations to secure the news team’s freedom. Manila-based officials broke off their regular schedules and flew to the far South to coordinate the operations. The government was not about to let itself be seen as complacent-even if the victims belong to a media organization hostile to the administration.

The massive movement of security personnel and equipment was done at great cost to the state. Who will foot the bill?

In countries with efficient rescue services, the parties that call for help are often required to pay for the cost of emergency response. This is one aspect of the 911 shows on television that is rarely mentioned. However, the logic is unassailable.

The upkeep for emergency response units comes from public funds, which in turn are sourced from taxpayers’ money. The cost of deploying those units should therefore be borne by those who directly benefit from them-unless, of course, they are indigent. However, a network like ABS-CBN can hardly be described as needy.

indeed. tinataga tayo ng lopezes sa koryente, karma-karma lang kung sila naman ngayon ang tagain for the operations that resulted in the release of their star correspondent. they can always make bawi by making a documentary that will tell all, and i mean ALL, in the spirit of the public’s right to know, na mantra ni maria ressa once upon a time not too long ago.

new kid on the blog

yehey! my daughter katrina has finally stepped out of her multiply closet, it’s about time, as she has a lot to say, too, manang-mana, ‘ika nga.

but where i was a sixties college drop-out and learned and earned my credits in the school of hard knocks, she’s done it the good-girl academic way, grounded in comparative lit and philippine studies, with a touch of tibak, pero medyo burgis.

and where i started out writing strictly showbiz stuff and slowly worked my way up to politics, she’s already writing about it all, and more.

my all-time favorite is incredible kris that she wrote at the height of the ball-breaking krisaquino-joeymarquez scandal, which we emailed to all our friends on the internet and which came back to us, full circle, from everywhere around the globe.

of course we got some hate mail, too, hehe.

“mahal” na pangulo

picked this up from ducky paredes‘ malaya column.

Gloria Arroyo has been our most expensive president – ever!

In 2007, the Office of the President spent a total of P249.5 million to pay the salaries and wages of its regular employees; and P10.7 million to pay casual and contractual employees.

That’s P260.2 million to pay the rank and file of the Office of the President, and 58 other executive offices, agencies, commissions, and committees that report to the Office of the President.

But that’s not all. Gloria Arroyo spent more than double that amount for her foreign (P585.5 million) and domestic (P34.1 million) travels, according to the Commission on Audit (COA)’s report on the 2007 financial transactions of Malacañang. This means an average of P49.04 million per month on foreign travel and P2.84 million on local travel!

She spent much more – P618.6 million – on “donations” to yet unknown beneficiaries, the COA report revealed. Malacañang, the COA report showed, spent similarly big amounts for broad, discretionary, and seemingly identical accounts, including: Confidential expenses P149 million; Consultancy services P59.6 million, Representation expenses P56.8 million, Representation allowance P14.5 million, Other bonuses and allowance P28.8 million, Transportation allowance P10.3 million, Advertising expenses P6.9 million, Additional compensation P24.8 million, Extraordinary expenses P6.64 million, Miscellaneous expenses P5.4 million, Other personnel benefits P119.8 million and Subsidy to Regional Offices/Staff Bureaus/Branch Offices P46.6 million

The COA report shows that apart from these amounts, the Office of the President also paid P21 million in “yearend bonus,” P7.1 million in”cash gift,” and P651,000 in “honoraria.”

Gloria’s household is also quite expensive. Look atthese items: Food supplies expenses P55.7 million or P4.6 million a month; Electricity P54.5 million or an average of P4.5 million a month; Gasoline, oil and lubricants P27.9 million or P2.3 million a month; Water P25.4 million or P2.1 million a month; Security services P13 million or P1.08 million a month; Janitorial services P4.8 million or P400,000 a month; Telephone, landline P13.5 million or P1.1 million a month; Telephone, mobile P9.07 million or P755,000 a month; Office supplies P13.5 million or P1.1 million a month; “Other supplies” P19.4 million or P1.6 million a month; Subscription expenses P1.04 million or P86,000 a month; Cooking gas P892,000 or P74,000 a month; Internet P332,597 or P27,716 a month and Cable, satellite, telegraph and radio P300,955 or P25,079 a month.

When we call her our “mahal na Pangulo,” that must be what we mean. Napakamahal talaga, di ba?”