At least 56 people were killed, 27 of them children, when a ferry bound for Tawi-Tawi sank off Jolo, Sulu yesterday. The Navy is searching for over 100 others who are missing and feared dead.
The Coast Guard said local fishermen helped rescue at least 43 people, many of whom were hospitalized.
Saying the accident "feels like deja vu," Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado said initial reports point to overloading as the cause of the sinking.
"We don't have anything to indicate that there was an explosion," he said. "There was no storm in the area. Not even rain."
"We just hope that we won't have any more accidents like this... It feels like deja vu, and it's very depressing," he said.
Mercado, who is also chief of the National Disaster Coordinating Council, said, "It's very hard to determine how many people were on board. The estimate is between 150 and 200."
Sulu Gov. Abdusakur Tan said the wooden ship Anahada was bound for Bacungan, Tawi-Tawi, then for Sabah, Malaysia. It sank at around 9 p.m. Wednesday some 1.3 nautical miles off Jolo shortly after leaving port. Many passengers crowded one side of the boat, causing it to tip and capsize.
"Most of the passengers panicked and jumped overboard," Tan said, citing reports from survivors. "Many of the victims were children."
Many passengers were believed trapped inside the boat when it went under. "We are still searching for more than 100 passengers who are still missing," Tan said. "We don't know if they are alive or dead."
Fishermen in the area were helping the Navy search for the missing passengers. The passengers' names were not available because the ship had no manifest.
Local Coast Guard commander Capt. Heliberto Pascual said the 71.68-ton vessel was only authorized to carry cargo, not passengers. "This is a cargo vessel, not a ferry," Pascual said. He said Coast Guard officers boarded the boat before allowing it to set sail.
"When we cleared the vessel at 1800 hours (6 p.m. Wednesday) for sailing, there were only nine crew members and 11 passengers," Pascual said.
After leaving Jolo, he said, the vessel picked up passengers from small boats at sea.
Navy Commodore Elenor Padre, Naval Forces South chief, said one of the ship's crewmen managed to swim nearly six kilometers back to shore and notify the Coast Guard.
By the time the Coast Guard and two ferry boats arrived at the scene, the Anahada was nearly sunk with only her right side above water. They found three survivors clinging to the hull and three bodies floating nearby.
Capt. Voltaire Engracia, Naval Forces South spokesman, said they were conducting an investigation with the assistance of the police. The Coast Guard said the boat was being towed back to port. They suspect that the vessel might have been trying to smuggle people into Malaysia.
According to a statement from the Navy, the Anahada is "owned and operated by a certain Marsharif Titing of Campo Islam, Zamboanga City" and skippered by Hamed Misuari. Radio reports said it was owned by a town mayor in Sulu.
Ferries are the main form of transportation among the country's more than 7,000 islands, and overcrowding and accidents are common. In the world's worst peacetime shipping disaster, the ferry Doña Paz collided with a tanker on Dec. 20, 1987, killing 4,341.
"All over the country rules and regulations against overloading are being flouted. A research institute in Belgium counted sea disasters over the past 100 years since 1900 and the most numerous and the ones with the most deaths occured in our country," Mercado said.