Tamayo said he temporarily relieved PCG Calapan detachment commander Petty Officer 1 Danilo Sanchez and clearing officer Petty Officer 2 Rizal Maligaya who received the Masters’ Oath of Safety Departure (MOSD).
Tamayo, however, said that the suspension is part of standard operating procedure (SOP) and is not an indication that the two have already been found guilty.
“This is not an accusation. We just want to give them time to prepare themselves for the investigation to determine if they are administratively liable, to give them time to express their side. Their
relief is also to avoid accusations that there is a whitewash in the investigation,” said Tamayo.
As of 5:45 p.m. yesterday, six persons were declared dead, 51 missing and 69 survived the tragedy, accounting for a total of 126 passengers and crew.
The fatalities were identified as Leahlyn Peñaranda, 19; John Panagsagan, 40; Hermina Largado, 18-25; Johnny Mutya, 36; Barbara Galanza, eight months old; and Jenelyn Gutierez, 20.
The PCG, assisted by the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC), the Philippine Navy (PN) and the Philippine Air Force (PAF), continued search and rescue operations yesterday for the passengers of Baleno 9 and M/V Catalyn B, which sank after colliding with a fishing vessel on Christmas Eve.
Coast guard spokesman Lt. Commander Armand Balilo said deep-sea divers have found 12 bodies inside the Catalyn B in addition to the four passengers already confirmed dead, with 11 still missing.
Exploring the depths
American national Matthew Caldwell, who holds the rank of captain in the Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary (PCGA), was able to get up close to the 79-gross ton wooden-hulled Catalyn B.
“There were at least a dozen bodies. There are two small children and male and female inside and on the floor, really in just the position that they passed away, some were lying down on the floor, they were not floating. Their belongings were also messed up,” Caldwell told reporters yesterday.
He said it took him four minutes to reach the depth of 221 feet, where the vessel was found in its upright position, lying on the sand with its bow damaged. The propeller was partly covered with sand.
Visibility was poor as he was going down, but when he reached the ship he saw its white paint.
A pail filled with cement tied to a rope, with the other end tied to the PCG vessel, served as a weight and was dropped into the water close to the vessel so they would know its exact location. When he was close to the ship he tied the rope to it so it would not be dragged away by the underwater current.
Caldwell circled the wooden-hulled vessel twice, looked through the windows and started counting the bodies for about 17 to 20 minutes before deciding that about 12 bodies were spread out on deck.
It took him 56 minutes to decompress and ascend to the surface.
Tamayo said they could not officially include the 12 bodies reportedly trapped inside the ship “because we cannot be certain if they were humans. They could be dolls or mannequins. We first have to recover the bodies completely and count them visually.”
But Caldwell explained that while they have located the ship and established its position, getting the bodies out would not be an easy task.
“It would be difficult to recover the bodies because of the depth and the dangers involved. This is not a trivial matter,” he said, citing the lack of equipment for deep-sea diving.
“This is a matter of resources and the available time for divers to stay at that depth. Two diver teams would have to be formed for this kind of operation,” he added.
Earlier, the PCG admitted that their divers could only swim up to 120 to 150 feet.
Considering these factors, a team of deep-sea divers can only go down to the depth of 221 feet twice a day and if there are a dozen bodies, it might take them two weeks to finish the job.
The PCG Commandant said they are also considering availing of the services of Malayan Towage which, along with its international counterpart, is reportedly willing to refloat the ship.
However, Tamayo said that for this option they would have to coordinate with the ship’s owner, San Nicholas Shipping Lines.
Racing against time
But hopes of finding survivors or the remains of those who perished in the two accidents get slimmer by the hour as search and rescue efforts continue to yield negative results, Navy spokesman Lt. Col. Edgard Arevalo said yesterday.
Arevalo said five Navy ships scouring some 400 nautical miles off Verde Island have returned empty handed 24 hours after the ill-fated Baleno 9 sank in the area.
“The weather is fine and the sea is calm, so it means if there are survivors or casualties floating in the waters, they could have already been seen by our vessels,” he said.
Arevalo said the 24 hours that already passed could have allowed the bodies to float.
“Within that window, we could have recovered the survivors or the casualties. After 74 hours, the cadavers could have sunk again,” he said, adding that two Islander planes of the Navy and Coast Guard and two UH-1H helicopters have also aided the search and rescue vessels.
The spokesman said the search for the survivors started at around 8 a.m. Monday in what is called the Northern Pass, in between Verde Island and Mindoro.
“This is the most probable area where survivors and casualties could have drifted, but our efforts have yielded negative results,” he said.
He said that the vessels have started retracing their route heading east to west and are now targeting the shorelines.
“We are racing against time because our hopes of finding survivors or casualties are getting dimmer by the hour,” he said.
No overloading
Tamayo, for his part, explained the discrepancy in the passenger manifest. In the MOSD, there were only 20 passengers, but the ship later submitted a list with 47 others in the supplemental passenger manifest and 41 classified as passenger not included in the manifest.
The names in the supplemental manifest represent the “last-minute passengers” or those who signed up after the MOSD had been submitted, while the 19 others who were classified “passengers not manifest” were the drivers and their assistants who accompanied the vehicles loaded on board the ship.
But even if “there is a gap in the manifest, it did not affect the loading,” meaning it did not result in overloading since the total number of passengers and crew on board - 126 - was way below the 284 allowable total capacity.
There are speculations that the maritime incident could have been caused by an open ramp that allowed the ingress of water.
Upon reaching 1.6 nautical miles Southeast of San Agapito, Verde Island in Batangas, water allegedly entered the roll-on, roll-off type vessel through the ramp.
If this was the case, Tamayo said responsibility on the “the overall maintenance of the structure of ship belongs to the ship owner. When they are out there at sea, it is up to the crewmembers already.”
There were also unconfirmed reports that rough waves caused the cargo, which were allegedly loosely tied, to disrupt the balance of the vessel and caused it to sink.
Tamayo said that all these information would be considered in the formal investigation to be conducted by the Special Board of Marine Inquiry (SBMI) to be headed by PCG district Batangas commander Commodore Cecil Chen.
The PCG said the 199-gross ton steel-hulled Baleno 9 carried 87 passengers and 14 crewmembers when it left the port of Calapan in Oriental Mindoro at around 11 p.m. of Dec. 26 on its way to Batangas.
The sunken ship is owned by Besta Shipping Lines which owns four other vessels: M/V Baleno 1, M/V Baleno 3, M/V Baleno 5, and M/V Baleno 8.
Legarda: Government should be responsible
Meanwhile, Sen. Loren Legarda said the latest twin maritime tragedies could have been prevented had government authorities been more careful in ensuring the seaworthiness of inter-island vessels.
Legarda also called on maritime authorities to continuously monitor compliance of shipping firms with existing safety standards and regularly check the seaworthiness of all inter-island vessels.
“With the country experiencing major sea disasters every so often, it is incumbent upon the government to take firm steps to protect the lives of people who depend on inter-island shipping,” she said.
Legarda said the sea accidents underscore once more the shortcomings of the concerned government agencies in the proper monitoring of maritime vessels.
“While accidents do happen, government cannot evade responsibility for its lax enforcement of maritime safety standards,” she said. “While the Maritime Industry Authority has done the right thing in suspending the franchises of the two shipping firms involved in the accident, government must do much more so that we can avoid more sea tragedies.” -Report from Arnell Ozaeta, Christina Mendez, James Mananghaya - By Evelyn Macairan (Philstar News Service, www।philstar.com)
http://eachnewsday.blogspot.com
More Interesting Link Resources:
No comments:
Post a Comment