MANILA, Philippines—A relative of missing passengers of the MV Princess of the Stars on Wednesday climbed a tower at North Harbor’s Pier 12, staying there for two hours to demand that Sulpicio Lines fulfill its promise to let the kin of the victims personally identify the recovered bodies.

Levi Padua, whose three relatives were on the ill-starred ship, was persuaded by policemen to descend after representatives of Sulpicio Lines assured him that he would be given a free trip to Cebu City, where the retrieved corpses are to be brought.

Padua carried a big placard written with a message to Sulpicio Lines and the authorities, which partly read, “Give us a ride to Cebu so that we may see [the bodies of] our relatives. We know that they’re gone already; it’s been already five days.”

Nobody apparently saw Padua climb the tower, owned by the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) and surrounded by several offices, at around 9:30 a.m. The PPA and Sulpicio guards were busy attending to the crowd that flocked to the pier demanding news about missing relatives.

Raised fist

His head wrapped in a red scarf, the bespectacled Padua stood on the observation area of the tower. He occasionally raised his fist.

His message said that he would not go down unless he was given the assurance that he and other relatives of the victims would get the ride to Cebu.

He said there was no “clear action” from Sulpicio on the relatives’ request to go to the accident site and help identify the bodies.

Padua’s companion, Josephine, whose husband Rey, a cousin of Padua’s, is one of the missing passengers. Josephine used a megaphone from the police to appeal to him to come down.

Rey’s daughter Raquel and another cousin, Jacqueline, were also among the missing passengers.

“Please get down here. What are you doing?” a sobbing Josephine said.

Two policemen later climbed the tower and spoke with Padua for about 10 minutes, after which he came down at around 11:30 a.m.

No charges

“We won’t charge him anymore and would just let him go. We told him that there was someone from Sulpicio who would be talking to him. We completely understand his suffering,” Supt. Rolando Miranda told reporters.

Padua was later brought to the Sulpicio office. He said a lawyer of the company had offered to bring him and Josephine to Cebu but they demanded that all relatives of the missing passengers go there, too.

“They keep promising us action but nothing has happened. That’s why I decided to climb the tower and I will not hesitate to climb it again if they continue their incompetence,” Padua said.

He said he had accepted that his relatives were already dead.

The passenger lounge at Pier 12 remained somber, with one or a few relatives occasionally bursting into tears or shouting angry words at passing Sulpicio employees.

Angry confrontation

A billboard displaying the names of the survivors stood side by side with another pasted with pictures of the missing.

At around 10 a.m., the crowd flocked around a woman and cheered her as she announced that she received a call from a sibling whose missing brother Joel Vallena had been found alive somewhere in Palawan province. She immediately left.

The Sulpicio lawyer, Dante Vargas, later tried to speak to the relatives but the discussion degenerated into a shouting match as the angry relatives crowded around him and peppered him with questions and expletives. The police had to be called in to extricate the lawyer from the throng.

In a message posted at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday on its website (www.sulpiciolines.com), Sulpicio Lines said it would be sending another vessel, MV Cagayan Princess, to Romblon to get the recovered bodies.

Another vessel, which is currently in Romblon, is still waiting for more bodies to be loaded before proceeding to Cebu.

All bodies to Cebu

“It is confirmed that we will be bringing all the bodies of the casualties here in Cebu City. As we assured you, we are exerting our best efforts. Today forensic experts of the National Bureau of Investigation-Manila are set to arrive in Cebu to help our local NBI in identification and autopsy. With this we are positive that we will be able to speed up our actions,” the company said.

Sulpicio said that it had formed a team, led by lawyer Noli Espina, at the Cebu City Hall and that the team was meeting with the local NBI, the National Disaster Coordinating Council, the Department of Health and members of the funeral homes to discuss the procedure of arrival of the casualties.

“As soon as the casualties are autopsied and identified by the NBI, we will immediately send the photos to Manila for further identification by their families. Once they confirm the identification, we can send the body to Manila or they can opt to send a family representative here in Cebu City to claim the body,” the company said.

16 medical experts

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez has ordered the NBI to speed up the identification of the victims.

“You are hereby directed to send NBI teams of sufficient number to Cebu to expedite identification of said victims,” Gonzalez said in a memorandum to NBI Director Nestor Mantaring.

Responding to the order, the NBI Wednesday sent a 16-member group of medical experts to Cebu to assist in identifying corpses retrieved from the ferry.

NBI spokesperson Allan Contado said the quick reaction team—four doctors, one dentist, two fingerprint technicians, two chemists, three photographers and four medical technologists—arrived in Cebu at around 2 p.m. Wednesday. With a report from Allison W. Lopez