CEBU CITY?A woman whose husband is among the missing passengers of the MV Princess of the Stars Wednesday refused financial aid from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and said the search operations should continue.

?My husband is still alive,? Daisy Oleo, 21, said she told the President in reply to the latter?s expression of condolence. Oleo, who was among the 30 family members selected to receive financial aid directly from Ms Arroyo, did not accept the P10,000 handed to her.

She said she also told Ms Arroyo that ?money could not pay for the life? of her husband, Angelo Oleo, 35.

According to Oleo, it is too painful for her to accept that her husband of less than two years will never come home.

She said her husband was a seaman who worked on foreign ships plying Europe, which was why she felt confident that he had survived the sinking.

?I asked the President whether she would accept that her husband is dead if she were in my place, and she answered no,? Oleo told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net).

For this reason, she said, the government should continue searching for the missing passengers of the ill-fated ship.

Gratitude but...

Ms Arroyo Wednesday visited the Cebu City sports complex where families of the dead and missing were assisted in the processing of their claims with shipowner Sulpicio Lines Inc.

The other recipients expressed gratitude for the financial aid, but they also said the search operations should continue until all the passengers and crew had been accounted for.

Earlier, Ms Arroyo attended a Mass together with the families of the victims at the sports complex.

After distributing the money, she left for the Mactan-Cebu International Airport where she was to attend a meeting of the Regional Disaster Coordinating Council.

Earlier Wednesday, Transportation Undersecretary Elena Bautista tried to explain to the families why the retrieval of the bodies from the sunken vessel was being delayed.

Bautista said the cargo of endosulfan, a dangerous pesticide, first had to be taken out before the retrieval operations could resume.

She said this would take about three months to complete.

DNA testing kits

Andreas Kleiser, director for policy and coordination of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), said the identification of the bodies retrieved from the Princess of the Stars would start as soon as the DNA testing kits arrive.

Established in 1996 and based in Sarajevo, the ICMP has been engaged in using DNA as a means of identifying huge numbers of missing persons and victims of calamities such as the 2004 tsunami in Thailand.

Kleiser said blood samples would be taken from as many family members of the missing passengers and match these with the samples taken from the recovered bodies.

Torkjel Rygnestad, an official of the Norway National Criminal Investigation Service, said the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) would provide financial assistance for the DNA identification.

Kleiser and Rygnestad are part of the incident response team (IRT) sent by the Interpol to the Philippines to help in the identification of the victims of the sinking through advanced DNA analysis.

The Interpol IRT team that arrived in Cebu on June 29 includes DNA and disaster identification experts who will work under the National Bureau of Investigation.

Power of attorney

In Manila, Persida Rueda-Acosta, the chief of the Public Attorney?s Office (PAO), said that relatives of the missing passengers of the Princess of the Stars were being made to sign a claim form for damages from Sulpicio Lines with the space for the special power of attorney left blank.

According to a fuming Acosta, this puts the relatives at risk of not receiving damages.

?They don?t know the person to be given the power of attorney. It might be Pedro Penduko. They might not get the money. Who are they going to run after?? she said in a phone interview.

Acosta, who visited the relatives still waiting for news at the Sulpicio Lines office, cautioned them against signing any form that they did not understand, and advised them to consult with lawyers before committing to anything.

?Never, never sign without the assistance of your counsel of choice. There might be fixers there,? she said, adding that everyone had the right to seek the help of legal counsel.

Acosta aired the suspicion that the forms might have been released by Sulpicio Lines. She said the shipping company had told the relatives that they would have no need of legal counsel when claiming damages because the process would be made simple.

She also said Sulpicio Lines personnel were telling the relatives not to talk to any PAO lawyer, and that lawyers from her office were being denied access to the relatives.

Quit-claim purposes

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez echoed Acosta?s warning, saying the questionable forms, if indeed orchestrated by Sulpicio Lines, could be used for quit-claim purposes in the future.

He said these forms would deny the relatives bigger financial compensation for the deaths of their loved ones, as may be determined by the court, or used in making them give up their right to the P200,000 that the shipping firm had promised.

?The amount [of compensation] could still go up, especially if the courts rule that there was reckless imprudence or negligence on the part of the company that resulted in the deaths of the passengers,? Gonzalez told reporters.

He said the relatives could consult with PAO lawyers.

He also said lawyers and other persons behind the questionable forms could be charged with legal ethics violations and usurpation, respectively.

?Not us?

Sulpicio Lines spokesperson Victoria Lim-Florido denied that the shipping firm was behind the release of the questionable forms.

?That special power of attorney, whatever is circulating, it did not come from us,? she told reporters. ?Our public announcement stated that [the claimants did] not need to hire the services of a lawyer. We want the claimants to come to us as they are, and not allow [themselves] to be taken advantage of by other people, unscrupulous individuals.?

According to Florido, whoever issued the forms wanted Sulpicio Lines to make the payments to the wrong people and be subjected to criticism again.

She called on the relatives to report to Sulpicio Lines any person who would give them such forms, and assured them that it would take measures to protect its name and the claimants? rights.

?Let us not take advantage of our fellow men in this dark tragedy. Have pity on them,? Florido said. With reports from Leila B. Salaverria and Jerome Aning in Manila