Will maritime officers investigate selves?

A Special Board of Marine Inquiry, formed because the oil spill by M/T Solar-1 hit the front pages, began work this week. It has established the following so far:

• The motorized tanker set sail from the Petron refinery in Limay, Bataan, for Zamboanga on Aug. 9 laden with 2.1 million liters of bunker oil. Southwest monsoon (habagat) waters were very rough, weathermen had reported. Solar-1 held a certificate for 16 crewmen, but had 20 on board, and only 19 life vests. Yet the Coast Guard unit in Limay cleared it to sail. Ship captain Norberto Aguro took the shorter route west of Panay Island in the open Visayas Sea, instead of east where waters relatively were calmer. He said he wanted to save on costs.

• Off Panay’s Antique province, Aguro noticed the tanker pitching forward. Four other crewmen said it was listing to starboard (right side). Aguro decided to seek shelter at the anchorage of Iloilo province. But he did not drop anchor, either with the intention of continuing the voyage or because the motor room, where the anchor’s electric control is located, was filled with water. At the stop, the crew noticed that the forecastle deck up front was taking in water. Too, the forepeak tank, chain locker room, and bosun’s store were flooded. They pumped out the water and plugged the leak of a damaged air vent.

• The tanker restarted in worse weather on Aug. 11. Hit by five-meter-high waves off Guimaras Island in the afternoon, it began listing anew to starboard. Aguro ordered the pilot to head for safety either in Guimaras or Bacolod in Negros Island. Too late, the tanker simply flipped over belly up, then sank 600 meters to the seabed. Eighteen of the crew, including two Petron surveyors, made it to the lifeboat. Two others were lost at sea and are presumed dead.

• It turned out that Aguro’s certificate of competency (COC) as marine master was for general chemical tankers, not oil. He once held a COC for general oil tankers, expired in 2002. He never took a specialized oil tanker training that the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) had required for masters starting 2005. He had advanced training for chemical tankers, but the COC for this too had expired in 2002. Aguro, who has worked on Japanese chemical and LPG tankers, claims that a COC for such vessels is superior to an oil tanker’s. His employer, Sunshine Maritime Development Corp. president Clemente Cancio, assumes the same. Aguro has been in Cancio’s employ for five years. Cancio hired Aguro because Solar-1 used to be commanded by only a second mate. But Solar-1 has an auxiliary captain because Sunshine had suspended Aguro several times for violating Petron’s rule of using a tugboat to enter Limay port.

• Solar-1 last dry-docked on Jan. 7 to Feb. 24. Its tanks, steel plates, piping and welding works were said to be in good condition. There was rust in the ballast tanks, but inspectors had dismissed it as minor.

First-tier liabilities are obvious from the facts and admissions. Aguro was driving without a license, so to speak. He and Cancio may chorus that a COC for a chemical tanker is higher than an oil ship’s, but that’s still like driving a motorcycle with a trucker’s license. The Marina’s rule is clear: a master must have the right COC for the right vessel. Both the employer (Sunshine Maritime) and the charterer (Petron} must ensure this. A ship owner must provide qualified and competent crew, and a charterer must ascertain this for his own good.

Aguro, Sunshine and Petron goofed. Cancio himself opined that his captain erred in resuming the voyage from Iloilo anchorage instead of waiting for the weather to clear. He said nothing, though, about the cheaper western route versus the safer eastern one.

Second-tier liabilities are as obvious. The Coast Guard, the agency deputized by Marina to enforce maritime laws, had cleared Solar-1 to sail in very bad habagat. This was in spite of an overload of four crewmen and inadequate lifesavers. The result: loss of two lives, the ship, and 2.1-millon liter cargo; plus the spill of 200,000 liters so far of crude oil that destroyed marine life, livelihood and tourism in Guimaras and Iloilo. The Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) also gave the final clearances to sail, first from Limay and then from Iloilo. And the Marina had handled the dry-dock inspection that did not after all ascertain the leaky ship’s seaworthiness.

The Coast Guard, Marina and PPA erred as well. But such conclusion may never come. For, the Special Board of Marine Inquiry is chaired by an officer of the Coast Guard, no less than its deputy commandant, Rear Adm. Danilo Abinoja. Its vice chairman is Marina deputy administrator Primo Rivera. And it has a PPA officer as senior member, Capt. Ibarra Garcia. It would be too much to expect them to denounce the very agencies for which they work.

In fairness, it must be said that Admiral Abinoja has been asking the right questions. It was he who grilled Aguro on the unsafe western route, the impatience to wait another day for better weather, and the failure to inspect the electric windlass that controls the anchor before resuming the voyage. Abinoja is the head as well of the regular Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI) that investigates sea disasters that escape Malacañang’s attention – and these are more numerous, including the sinking in Dec. 2005 of another oil-spilling Petron-chartered tanker off Semirara Island near Guimaras. But he should not have been put, to begin with, in a position where he may have to endorse criminal charges against fellow-Coast Guard officers. The better option is to move good investigators like Abinoja to an independent National Transport Safety Board, but a bill for such body has been pending in Congress for years.

Perhaps because of the sticky position of its deputy in the BMI, the Coast Guard in fact has been ignoring its recommendations. From the last SBMI, also headed by Abinoja, new safety rules were required of all ships because of the terrorist bombing of Super Ferry-14. Passenger cabin doors must be fitted to collapse and have escape hatches; galleys must use diesel or electricity for cooking, no longer LPG; all renovation materials must henceforth be fire retardants; glass panels and doors must be replaced with shatter-proof material; all firefighting equipment must be doubled; and self-contained breathing apparatus must be installed. The Coast Guard has not bothered to enforce these, in a seeming slap to its deputy commandant.

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