Flowers, prayers at sea for ferry victims
And tears, forgiveness, blessings
By Tarra Quismundo, Nikko Dizon
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:51:00 06/27/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Tearful relatives on Thursday heard Mass and strewed flowers close to the capsized MV Princess of the Stars where bodies entombed inside were ballooning to twice their original size, posing difficulties to divers attempting to retrieve them.
Mark Anthony Barroza, whose girlfriend, 4 months pregnant, was on the ferry, screamed “Forgive me” before breaking down.
Barroza joined a small group of families who came to San Fernando town on Sibuyan Island to try and get information on their missing relatives, fearing they might be among the hundreds believed trapped inside the doomed ferry whose bow was poking in the water two kilometers from the shore.
They boarded the tugboat Badjao and went near the ferry to hear a Catholic priest say Mass and later throw flowers into the water.
A distraught Barroza asked Transportation Undersecretary Elena Bautista about his girlfriend. “How could we still identify her when most of the bodies found no longer have clothes on?”
Upset families from Manila trooped to San Fernando Thursday, only to be told by representatives of the ferry’s owner, Sulpicio Lines, that they should go instead to Cebu City, where the bodies were being brought.
“Why wasn’t there any advisory? It’s like we are chasing after you. Just think of how tired we already are and how bad we already feel. You have not provided us any help,” Delfin Clemente berated the Sulpicio representative.
Commodore Luis Tuazon of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said in Manila that weighted belts had been sent to the site to help lower bodies that had floated to the top of the submerged cabins and compartments in the seven-story vessel.
No more photos
He said divers were having trouble pulling the bloated fatalities through narrow, debris-filled corridors of the 23,800-ton vessel.
Frogmen were earlier ordered to take photographs of the cadavers so they could be identified, but the directive was rescinded later because of sensitiveness over the issue.
“It will take a month to retrieve all the bodies,” Coast Guard spokesperson Jansen Benjamin said, according to Agence France-Presse.
Cadavers tangled in wires
“Divers have sighted many bodies but have not been able to retrieve them as the entrances and exits are blocked. Some of the cadavers are tangled in wires,” he said.
It was unclear how many of the 862 passengers and crew remained inside the vessel after it smacked into powerful Typhoon “Frank” (international codename: Fengshen) on Saturday night and sank while en route from Manila to Cebu City.
The PCG said 124 people aboard died, another 56 survived and the rest were missing, most of them probably still trapped inside the vessel.
Names of the dead
The Philippine Coast Guard action center Thursday said the death toll from the Sulpicio Lines ferry disaster had reached 124, with seven of the bodies officially identified.
The Coast Guard identified the dead as Jose Ramil Tuquid; Florwen Payod; Julie Mendoza; Evangeline Alcantara; Diana Rose Laborte; Sgt. Rolando Cueva; and a certain Robert.
Tuquid’s remains were found in Mulanay town in Quezon province. Mendoza and Alcantara were recovered on Sibuyan Island while Laborte, Cueva, and Robert were retrieved from Burias Island.
The tally of the Coast Guard Action Center said 98 of the dead were “unidentified,” of which 19 were male, five were female, and two were children.
Forty males and six females were among the survivors, while five others remain unidentified.
Among the survivors were five rescued crewmen who were identified as Renato Lunarias, Roel Vibo, Ciriaco Nuńez, Fel Gilig, and Estanislao Tura.
It was not clear from the PCG report if the death toll included remains retrieved from the wreckage of the ship.
Only 1 percent covered
PCG Director Cecil Chen said Philippine and US Navy divers had been unable to penetrate deeper inside the ferry five days into the search with hopes dimming of finding more survivors.
“Literally, we have searched just one space ... maybe just 1 percent because it’s a big ship, 600 feet plus. And in that space, we still see 10 bodies... we haven’t opened the cabins,” Chen told reporters in San Fernando.
The US Navy is expected to shift its efforts from search to humanitarian assistance in the next few days, US Navy Lt. Christian De Salvo told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net).
“We don’t want to be disrespectful but we want to go to the people who need help the most,” De Salvo said.
Some 40 of the 95 divers from the PCG proceeded with search operations Thursday and Chen said work might speed up as workers had been instructed to locate another access point in and out of the ship. Currently, divers use only one open window as access point.
“Because of their experience in the dive and they saw bodies in the dining area somewhere, the scenario we are talking about now is to add another exit point where it will be easier to bring out the bodies and then bag them underwater. They are trying that now,” Chen said.
Bodies decomposing
“If we don’t do that, the bodies are already decomposing, they might break apart so it should be placed in a bag and then put counterweight,” he said.
On Wednesday night, a Philippine Navy ship recovered seven bodies out of the more than 30 floating corpses sighted by the US spy plane P-3 Orion off Burias Island, while another three remains were retrieved in Palana Point, also on Burias.
The Navy said it had received a report that the bodies of two more men and two women were spotted off Colorado Point on Burias.
A Coast Guard Islander plane was continuing to search for bodies and survivors Thursday and the operation would continue until new orders were given by the PCG commandant, Vice Adm. Wilfredo Tamayo. With a report from Joel Guinto, INQUIRER.net
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