SIM cards help tag ferry victims

CEBU – Two mobile phone Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards helped authorities identify two victims of the sunken ferry M/V Princess of the Stars and get in touch with their relatives.

Sad but relieved relatives of Susan Genovia and Joel Tapangan Vilabellena claimed the bodies of their kin yesterday after they arrived late Sunday night along with 74 others from Albay province.

Even if all the bodies had already decomposed, Genovia and Vilabellena were identified by the SIM cards of the cellular phones that were found with them.

The victims’ bodies arrived on board M/V Cebu Princess, a sister ship of Princess of the Stars, at around 10:45 p.m. Sunday and were met by personnel of the Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes, who immediately loaded the bodies into waiting trucks and vans and brought them to the Junquera branch of the company.

The remains of the 74 others will still have to undergo DNA testing to determine their identities.

They are also believed to be among the hundreds who perished when the vessel capsized off Sibuyan Island in Romblon last month.

How the two victims were identified has been considered almost miraculous by one of the relatives.

The SIM cards were still working despite being underwater for some time, allowing authorities to contact their kin.

Genovia’s body arrived in Cebu on what was supposed to be her 47th birthday.

The Genovia family from Babag, one of the mountain barangays in Cebu City, has no plans of filing suit against the management of Sulpicio Lines, owner of the sunken vessel.

The relatives of Vilabellena also thanked the local government officials of Burias, Albay for assisting them in locating their relative’s body.

It was also through the victim’s SIM pack that authorities were able to inform his relatives in Cebu about his fate.

Another 20 bodies are due to arrive later this week on board M/V Cagayan Princess.

Forensic experts reiterated yesterday that it would take months to identify the victims of the latest sea tragedy.

In a statement, experts said that while every effort is being made to identify the victims as quickly as possible, it is essential that the processes are carried out thoroughly and professionally to ensure that each cadaver is correctly identified.

According to the Disaster Victim Identification-Information Management Center (IMC-DVI), a total of 1,461 DNA samples have been gathered from the 1,895 registrants since July 7.

Of the 206 bodies that have been processed, only 11 have been released after definitive identification.

Once a victim is identified, an officer from the National Bureau of Investigation will contact his or her family.

Report completed

After a month and a day of meticulous hearings and deliberations, Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI) chairman Rear Admiral Ramon Liwag yesterday said he was pleased to announce that they have already completed their findings and recommendations on the Princess of the Stars tragedy and were scheduled to submit the report yesterday afternoon to Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) commandant Vice Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo.

“It is a good feeling that we have already completed the report. We have done our job. I think the report was well-written and we were able to deliberate on all the issues,” said Liwag.

He however did not disclose the contents of the report.

When the fact-finding body was convened on June 23, it was tasked to determine the cause of the accident and the people who should be held liable and to submit a recommendation to the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) to ensure that there would be no repeat of the incident.

The BMI called 13 hearings where they heard the testimonies of 28 witnesses and requested for several documents pertinent to their investigation.

Shipper is responsible

Del Monte Philippines Inc. will not escape liability with regard to the 10 metric tons of toxic endosulfan cargo it shipped in the sunken Princess of the Stars, two lawmakers said yesterday.

“It is a policy according to the bill of lading that the shipper is responsible for the cargo,” Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez told Luis Alejandro, chief operating officer of Del Monte, who attended yesterday’s hearing at the House transportation committee.

Golez said the company should be included among those civilly and criminally liable when the Sulpicio Lines-owned passenger vessel sank off the waters of Romblon last June 21, killing at least 700 people.

Golez called it a virtual time bomb, especially since the endosulfan cargo poses greater risks once it leaks from the sunken boat and spreads the toxic chemical in the open seas.

Meantime, Cebu Rep. Raul del Mar expressed dismay when he discovered that such cargo was misdeclared in the local bill of lading, contrary to the original shipment where endosulfan was declared from the port of Israel where it originated.

Alejandro, on the other hand, played it safe and hinted that they may not be liable, because they have a broker who was responsible for the issuance of a special permit and other pertinent documents needed for the shipment.

“We trust that shipping lines are more knowledgeable on these matters. On our part we made sure that cargo was properly packed, there was complete documentation and there were proper markings on the cover,” he said.

In a related development, party-list Akbayan, through its representative Risa Hontiveros, urged the government to make Sulpicio accountable, in light of reports that it issued quit claims to evade possible legal action from the survivors and victims’ relatives. – Ramil Ayuman,Jasmin Uy, Cressida Paula Delmo/Freeman News Service, Evelyn Macairan, Delon Porcalla