EDITORIAL - Another maritime tragedy

For whatever it’s worth, maritime officials grounded yesterday the fleet of the Montenegro Shipping Lines and inspected the vessels for seaworthiness. The inspection came a day too late for at least 28 people, many of them children, who died after a fire broke out and quickly spread on the Montenegro ferry Maria Carmela as it approached the port of Lucena from Masbate.

Maritime officials said the investigation of the latest ferry disaster would take about three months. But the officials were quick to point out yesterday that the tragedy was not the result of negligence on the part of maritime personnel. The ship, which could ferry more than 300 passengers, had only about 290 people on board, the officials said. Unlike other maritime disasters, overloading was not a factor in the Maria Carmela fire, the officials said, although there were reports that some passengers boarded at the last minute and were not on the vessel’s manifest.

Overloading might not have been a factor, but one wonders if the disaster could have been averted or the casualty count at least minimized. The fire spread rapidly throughout the vessel. Could this have been due to the improper storage of a cargo of copra? Initial reports said the copra could not all fit in the cargo hold so some of the oily, highly combustible products were stowed on deck, some near the boiler room. As the fire quickly engulfed the vessel, survivors recounted a stampede for life vests, which were not enough for all the passengers. In such a situation, it’s easy to see why so many of the fatalities were children.

In recent years there have been fewer ferry accidents as responsible shipping operators retired their "floating coffins" and maritime authorities made an effort to improve the enforcement of inter-island shipping regulations. The last major maritime disaster occurred in April 2000, when the ferry Annahada sank off Jolo, leaving at least 138 people dead. Last year 10 people drowned when a boat capsized off Tawi-Tawi.

But there’s still a wide room for improvement, as the latest tragedy has shown. There are still unmanifested passengers. There may not be enough life vests on a ship. And cargo can be improperly stowed. For millions of Filipinos, maritime transportation is the cheapest mode of moving around this archipelago. Shipping operators must be made more accountable for the many lives entrusted to them each time their vessels set sail. Accidents do happen, but in the Philippine maritime industry, accidents are still happening too often for comfort.