Agence France-Presse
SAN FERNANDO, Romblon - The owner of a sunken Philippine ferry is unwilling to see its vessel refloated because it would not be able to claim full damages from insurers, a maritime official said Saturday.
The senior official said that the submerged Princess of the Stars, which contains hundreds of dead bodies inside, could easily be refloated but the shipping line and authorities were stalling.
The ferry, which sank off the central island of Sibuyan with 850 people aboard in a typhoon a week ago, has an intact hull with air pockets that could be used to float it once more and put it the right side up, the official said.
However, declining to be named, he said the owners, Sulpicio Lines, and the coast guard "are not pursuing that tact because they are waiting apparently for the insurers to conduct their own investigation."
"If they re-float the vessel, Sulpicio will not be able to claim damages for a total wreck," the senior official said.
The 24,000-tonne vessel is sitting upside down on a reef off Sibuyan, part of its hull jutting from the waters. Only 57 survivors have been found and it is believed that most of the bodies of the dead are trapped inside the hull.
Coast guard and navy divers, assisted by US navy frogmen, were trying to retrieve dead bodies from the ship but the already slow-moving operation was suspended on Friday after it was discovered that the vessel was carrying a shipment of a toxic pesticide that might leak into the water.
The maritime official said the pesticide complicated the operation but remarked that the coast guard should have had blueprints of the ship and other documents from Sulpicio Lines identifying its cargo before the retrieval operations began.
The site of the sinking, earlier a hive of activity with rescue divers and their boats criss-crossing the waters, was quiet on Saturday with only a boat from the Bureau of Fisheries seen taking water samples for testing.
Nanette Tansingco, mayor of the coastal town of San Fernando, closest to the ill-fated ship, said she had barred fishermen from the area due to the pesticide threat.
"We will be doing a lot of studies in the area to make sure no one gets ill from eating fish," she said.
Officials earlier said that they found no trace of the pesticide in the waters but are not taking chances and have subjected the divers to medical tests to make sure they did not ingest any poison.
Coast guard spokesmen said they could not be sure when they would be able to remove the pesticide from the ship or when they could resume efforts to retrieve the bodies.
They said it was up to Sulpicio Lines to provide the essential information needed to remove the shipping container that holds the pesticide but they did not know when that information would be forthcoming.
The slow recovery of dead bodies has angered relatives who have trooped to Sulpicio Lines offices in Manila and the central city of Cebu waiting for word of their loved ones.
Sulpicio Lines has had at least three other major accidents since 1987, when its Dona Paz vessel collided with an oil tanker, killing around 4,000 people in the worst peacetime maritime disaster in history.
The government suspended the company's operations until further notice, while anti-corruption campaigners are planning a class action lawsuit. A board of inquiry is also conducting hearings on the company's possible liability.
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