Cargo motorboat with 4 persons aboard survives sinking

TACLOBAN CITY- A cargo motorboat loaded with four passengers and merchandise escaped sinking after a passenger made a distress call with the Coast Guard in Naval town, Biliran province on Friday afternoon.

The motorboat, MB Jemarlet, was sailing between Simbawan Island, off Maripipi, Biliran and Masbate province, when one of the passengers made a call with their office about 2:30 p.m., said Glen Asis of the Naval Coast Guard.

“The said motorboat encountered big waves, [the] reason one of the passengers made the distress call as they were afraid that they might sink as water started to enter their motorboat,” Asis, said in a phone interview.

The rescued motorboat, with Captain Lucas Solibaga and three passengers, and loaded with 140 sacks of mangoes and 15 pigs, docked safely at Barangay San Lorenzo, Kawayan, also in Biliran, around 4:30 pm.

Commodore Lawrence Roque, chief of the Tacloban Coast Guard, in a separate interview, said MB Jemarlet left Pio V. Corpus, Masbate around 11:30 a.m. Friday and on its way to Tacloban City, where the loaded products were to be sold, when it encountered big waves.

“The said motorboat arrived here in Tacloban port around 1 a.m. Saturday with all of its passengers safe and unharmed,” Roque said.

Roque added that another motorboat, MB Rea Angela, which travelled 30 minutes ahead of MB Jemarlet, also from Pio V. Corpus, which had seven passengers captained by Julie Amaroto, and loaded with more than 100 sacks of mangoes and 15 pigs, arrived in Tacloban safely.