Government losses mount in search for missing contraband ship

CEBU CITY — The government not only lost roughly P33 million representing the cost of MV Great Faith and the value of the 20,000 bags of smuggled rice on board when it escaped from Customs custody, it is also spending heavily for the massive sea and air search for the missing vessel.

Lt. Col. Michael Manquiquis, spokesman of the AFP Central Command, said the government is spending at least P1 million a day for the fuel alone consumed during the search.

Manquiquis said several Navy patrol craft, two Air Force helicopters and a Nomad plane have been searching for the Great Faith since Dec. 25, the day it was reported to have slipped from its Customs guard at the Ouano wharf in Mandaue City.

He said one helicopter alone uses up to two drums of A-1 jet fuel in one hour of flight, each drum costing about P5,000 or a total of P10,000 per helicopter per hour.

Manquiquis said the search for the Great Faith has already covered one-third of the total sea area of the country from the Visayas to Mindanao, including Palawan. Still the search yielded negative results at the end of the third day since the ship vanished.

Yesterday, Customs Cebu deputy collector Santiago Maravillas went on a wild goose chase to Naga following reports that a cargo ship with a rice shipment on board had anchored offshore. What he found there instead was the MV John Roger of Villa Shipping Lines, its cargo bold empty.

Sampaguita Shipping Lines, the Zamboanga City-based operator of Great Faith, yesterday denied any involvement in the disappearance of its ship while under Customs custody.

Edward Go, the general manager, in a telephone interview with The Freeman from his office in Zamboanga City, said company officials were shocked to learn the ship escaped, knowing it had been under Customs custody the past three months.

The Great Faith was apprehended by Maravillas himself with a cargo of 20,000 bags of suspected smuggled rice last Sept. 13. The ship and its cargo were subsequently ordered forfeited in favor of the government by Customs commissioner Titus Villanueva on Dec. 12.

Meanwhile, the escape of the Great Faith has taken on a new twist, with a Coast Guard official raising the possibility that the ship may have been actually hijacked by its own crew. — Freeman News Service