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Dead bodies are still floating but the blame game is
already in full swing. Fingers are put to good use—pointing to
everyone else for the ferry tragedy that caused the deaths of 800
innocent lives and a multiple of that for the shattered families. As
with all investigations, talk shows and media reports, the issues
get murkier.
Let’s sort this mess out, shall
we? The basic document between the common carrier and the passengers
is a contract of carriage. It is an agreement to safely transport
passengers from point A to B as far as human care and foresight can
provide, using the utmost diligence of very cautious persons with a
due regard for all the circumstances. In legal jargon, the standard
of care required is extraordinary diligence because of the public
nature of the carrier.
Was the public carrier negligent
or at fault for sailing into the typhoon? A ship can only leave port
if the Coast Guard gives the go-signal for its compliance with rules
and regulations as to seaworthiness of the vessel among others. The
argument is that if the Coast Guard allowed it to sail, then it must
be safe and the diligence required met. Much reliance is also placed
on the weather report agency Pagasa. Its alleged failure to promptly
and accurately report the trajectory of the typhoon is blamed for
the sinking.
Two questions follow: Is the
public carrier discharged from the diligence required once the Coast
Guard clears it based on the latest weather report such that the
public carrier need not constantly check the changing weather
patterns? When the ship was hit by the waves and capsized, was there
no human action that could have effectively intervened?
There is a distinction between
“perils of the ship” and “perils of the seas.” Perils of the
ship refers to such factors that make the ship less seaworthy such
as a defective or poorly maintained engine conking out in the middle
of the sea. Perils of the seas are understood as an act of God that
is beyond any human intervention.
Did the ship’s crew
continuously monitor the progress of the typhoon to consider safe
harbor to await the passing of the storm? It is ironic that we are a
nation of seafarers starting from our forefathers with a history of
tragic maritime deaths. Blame the OFW policy and local economic
conditions.
Even if the ship did run aground,
there should not have been such catastrophic death versus survivor
rates. We are an archipelagic people at home with water and natural
and man-made disasters. There were several islands in the proximity
of the not-so-deep waters. Was it a question of evacuation
procedures, sufficiency of lifeboats, flotation devices, emergency
exits and adequate manpower and facilities? Thank God there is no
question of overloading this time.
To think that there must be at
least 1,000 cell phones on that vessel that could have received and
sent text messages or calls on the status of the typhoon in
real-time unless there was no signal on board. And the radars and
communication facilities were down. We are innovative and adaptive
to technology except when it comes to saving lives.
Blame the monopoly on domestic
shipping, Congress for bad laws and the lack of budget and lack of
enforcement. Nobody wants an incident like this and yet. We have not
discussed endosulfan and the accusation of transporting hazardous
goods together with passengers. Blame the fertilizer authority and
the multinationals. Pretty soon, the shipper, the agents, the common
carrier, the government, the salvage workers, the fisherfolk, the
fish traders, the restaurant-going public will be blaming each
other. Then the investigations will end and cases will go through
the court system. Settlements and compromises will be made. Blaming
continues; life goes on. It is back to normal until the next normal
tragedy.
We might as well blame the
dolphins for the incident. If dolphins could speak, they would have
filed a class action against everybody else. But they can’t so we
can put all the blame on the dolphins.
Mabinihall@gmail.com.
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