Don’t stop search, survivors beg Coast Guard

“SANA naman wag silang huminto sa paghahanap ng aking anak. Sana naman may madala ako pag-uwi ko sa amin. (I hope authorities won’t stop the retrieval operations. I want to bring the body of my daughter home).”

So said 24-year-old Anna Lamoste of San Juan, Surigao who along with five other survivors recounted their ordeal to the Special Board of Marine Inquiry.

Families of the missing passengers of the ill-fated MV St. Thomas Aquinas appealed to authorities to continue the search more than a week after the collision off Lawis Ledge in Talisay City.

In relaying their experiences, the six survivors  appealed to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) not to stop searching for the missing passengers.

Lamoste said she wants to see her nine-year-old daughter whom she lost while struggling to survive following the ship collision.

She said she went to several hospitals in Cebu City to search for her daughter to no avail.

“Palipat-lipat na ako sa mga ospital dito sa Cebu para lang makita ang anak ko. Kahit sa damit man lang, makita ko sana para malaman ko na nandiyan siya. (I transferred from one hospital to another to verify if my daughter is there. I hope to see even just her clothes so I’ll know that she’s there),” Lamoste told the 5-man investigating panel.

Limitations

SBMI chairman Commodore Gilbert Rueras promised her that they will relay Lamoste’s concern to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) for them to continue the search and retrieval operations.

Commodore William Melad, Coast Guard district commander, said he won’t order his men and other divers to stop the retrieval operations until all missing passengers are found.

“I haven’t issued any declaration to stop the retrieval operations. Until we check each and every substantial spaces in the sunken ship, we will not stop,” he said.

Melad said 19 divers have been trying to search for the missing passengers of the ship daily.

“Of course, these divers have limitations, They could stay under the water more than 40 minutes so they have to take turns. That 40 minutes start by the time they dive into the water until they resurfaced to the sea water,” he said.

Melad said the divers have to survey the sunken ship before going inside.

“There are debris inside like sofas. We have to check the ship before going inside so that our divers won’t get trapped,” he said.

Melad said their aim is to retrieve all the dead passengers inside the ship.

“After we will be able to retrieve all the dead bodies inside the vessel, we may refloat or cut the parts of the ship into parts to remove it,” he said.

Daisy Espiel, one of the survivors, has been looking for his two cousins who, along with her, were on board the MV St. Thomas Aquinas.

“We got separated from each other because there were many passengers who were struggling inside the ship. I didn’t expect to be alive,” she said during the SBMI yesterday.

Espiel, who knows how to swim, said she didn’t wear a life vest and just kept swimming until she managed to find a life raft.

The survivors yesterday told SBMI that the ship crew never informed them that MV St. Thomas Aquinas collided with a cargo vessel. They were just told not to panic.

“How could we not panic when the ship was already on its way down? People were already grabbing life vests for themselves,” said Espiel who was headed to Manila from Surigao.