|
Embattled shipping firm Sulpicio Lines Inc. blamed Del Monte
Philippines for allegedly failing to declare its toxic cargo now
apparently threatening the environment and the people in central
Philippines and the divers who are retrieving corpses from the
sunken Princess of the Stars. Sulpicio Lines owns the ferry.
Lawyer Victoria Florido, also the spokesman for
Sulpicio Lines, told ABS-CBN’s morning show Umagang Kay Ganda that
they accepted without questions a cargo from Del Monte that turned
out to be a shipment of endosulfan, a poisonous pesticide.
Ship officials said Del Monte had failed to
advise them that the cargo was a toxic hazard. Had they been told,
the officials added, they would not have loaded onto Princess of the
Stars.
“We relied solely on [Del Monte’s]
declaration [on what it wanted us to ship] in good faith. [We cannot
open the cargo] under pertinent laws,” Florido said. She did not
say what such laws are.
The lawyer-spokesman assured families of the
victims of the sunken ship that they will each receive P200,000 as
insurance and compensation. The vessel went down on June 21 off
Sibuyan Island in Romblon province, presumably killing hundreds.
Sulpicio Lines had said there were 862 passengers and crew on board
when the ship sank. Fewer than 100 survivors have been found.
An expert Filipino-British salvage team arrived
in the Philippines on Sunday to remove toxic cargo from Princess of
the Stars so that divers could recover hundreds of bodies believed
trapped inside the hull of the vessel.
Sulpicio Lines, which acquired the services of
the salvage firm, said the retrieval process involves boring a hole
on the hull through which the containers containing the toxic cargo
could be raised.
The 23,000-ton vessel is perched upside down on
a reef off Sibuyan Island, with part of its hull jutting from the
waters.
The coast guard chief, Wilfredo Tamayo, said
Sulpicio Lines and the authorities have studied, but ruled out,
refloating the vessel now.
“That option has been considered earlier, but
it was deemed that the cutting of a hole in the vessel is more
appropriate at this time,” Tamayo added.
A maritime official had said Sulpicio Lines
would be unable to claim full damages from insurers if the boat was
refloated.
An advance party of Subsea Services Inc., which
is registered in the Philippines and uses British and Filipino
specialists, said its work will have started on Monday when their
heavy equipment that will come from Singapore reaches Sibuyan
Island.
“We will first have to do an assessment using
a CCTV [closed-circuit television] camera. We will monitor and
survey the site and we will bore small holes so we can get water
samples,” said the team’s supervisor Chris Kenneman.
“We can break through as quickly as one day
depending on the conditions and the thickness of the panel,” he
told reporters.
The removal of the containers containing the
poisonous cargo should be completed by Wednesday.
Tamayo said the experts would then study the
removal of the fuel on board. Thousands of liters of oil were
reported to also have been on board the stricken ship.
After removing the toxic cargo, he added, the
authorities can continue efforts to retrieve bodies still trapped
inside the ship.
Only 57 survivors have been found, along with
161 bodies, many of them having washed ashore to nearby islands.
The ferry ran into Typhoon Frank on June 20. The
slow-moving rescue operations were suspended on June 27 after it
emerged that Princess of the Stars was carrying containers of toxic
pesticide.
Sulpicio Lines has had at least three other
major sinkings since 1987, one of them involving its Doña Paz that
collided with an oil tanker, killing around 4,000 passengers and
crew in the worst peacetime maritime disaster in history. In 1988,
another of its ferries, Doña Marilyn, sank off Leyte during a
typhoon, killing some 250 passengers and crew.
Between 1990 and 1999, the Philippine Coast
Guard counted some 1,825 maritime accidents, or an annual average of
182 reported cases.
The government has suspended the company’s
operations until further notice. A board of inquiry was also
conducting hearings on the company’s possible liability.
-- Francis Earl A. Cueto and AFP
|
