Body of missing Pinoy oil rig worker found

MANILA, Philippines - The Filipino welder who went missing Sunday night after falling off an offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico has been found dead.

Divers from the US Coast Guard recovered the body of Peter Jorge Voces, 38, at around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Philippine embassy officials in Washington said yesterday.

“It is with deep sadness that we learn about the loss of our kababayan,” Philippine Ambassador Jose Cuisia Jr. said.

An official of Houston-based Talos Energy said Voces was a member of a derrick barge crew that was contracted by its subsidiary, Energy Resource Technology, to dismantle one of its platforms at Vermillion Block 200 located some 55 miles south of Freshwater Bayou in Louisiana.

Talos Energy representative David Blackmon said the Filipino worker was apparently knocked off the platform by an empty storage tank that fell with him into the waters around 100 feet deep.

Consul Romulo Israel Jr. said the remains of Voces were turned over to his employer, Offshore Specialty Fabricator LLC, in Louisiana.

Voces was a registered overseas worker deployed as a welder by 88 Aces Maritime Services, a licensed manning company in Manila.

Chicago Consul General Leo Herrera-Lim assured the victim’s family that the Philippine Consulate General would facilitate the repatriation of his remains at the soonest time possible.

Lim said they would make the necessary representations with his employer to secure his benefits.

The Philippine embassy officials were grateful to the US Coast Guard for spearheading the search and rescue effort to recover the body of Voces.

The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration will give financial assistance to the victim’s family, OWWA chief Carmelita Dimzon said. – With Mayen Jaymalin