22 still unaccounted for in SuperFerry tragedy

Twenty-two passengers are still missing while 96 have been confirmed dead as retrieval operations on the ill-fated SuperFerry 14 are expected to end today after two days of futile search for more bodies.

Philippine Coast Guard-National Capital Region chief Commodore Wilfredo Tamayo said that after "100 percent of the ship" was searched, no bodies of those reported still missing were found yesterday.

Tamayo said he will now recommend a "termination of full retrieval operations" before Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza to shift the operations to salvage and environmental protection work.

The search for bodies during the three-week sweep of the ship’s flooded area dramatically brought the death toll from one to 96, making the SuperFerry 14 incident one of the country’s worst maritime disasters.

Maritime accidents are relatively common in the Philippines, a country of more than 7,000 islands linked by networks of passenger ferries and cargo ships.

The Philippines earned the infamy of being the site of the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster when the passenger vessel Doña Paz collided with a fuel tanker in December 1987, killing 4,340 people.

Tamayo said investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the fire aboard SuperFerry 14 last Feb. 27, whether it was an accident or an act of terrorism.

Authorities played down the claim made by the bandit group Abu Sayyaf that one of their men planted a bomb inside the ferry which caused the explosion.

Maritime investigators, however, haven’t ruled out the possibility of a terror attack.

The ship caught fire shortly after an explosion occurred and the flames quickly spread to the passenger decks. This was shortly after midnight or two hours after the ferry had left Manila for Bacolod City and was passing Corregidor Island at the mouth of Manila Bay.

Maritime authorities towed the gutted remains of the ship to the shallow waters off Mariveles, Bataan.

Coast Guard divers conducted retrieval operations after waiting two days for the burning ferry to cool down.

Tamayo said divers recovered bodies of passengers almost daily but they came up empty-handed for the first time yesterday.

"If we would find more bodies tomorrow (today) then we will continue with the search, but if not, then we will shift to salvage work," Tamayo said.

A private firm hired by the ferry operator WG&A will take over, Tamayo said. He added the Coast Guard will be standing by to monitor the salvage operations.

WG&A spokeswoman Gina Virtusio said that out of the 96 bodies retrieved, 28 have been identified. There were 781 survivors.

Virtusio said a declaration from forensic experts of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on the identities of the victims will be needed for insurance collection purposes.

She said WG&A would ask relatives to establish their relationship to the victims and come out with evidence that their kin boarded the ill-starred vessel.