MANILA, Philippines -- A mass was celebrated in a Romblon town earlier this week in remembrance of the victims of the sinking of the M/V Princess of the Stars in 2008.
According to a report on the Romblon News Network, officials and residents of San Fernando town also lit candles along the shoreline and offered flowers for the dead after the mass.
The M/V Princess of the Stars was sailing to Cebu from Manila in June 2008 when it capsized due to bad weather. The ship had been cleared to sail despite storm warnings and survivors said the ship captain Florencio Marimon gave the order to abandon ship too late.
Only 32 of around 850 people on the ship survived.
A Manila Regional Trial Court ordered shipping company Sulpicio Lines, Inc. -- since renamed Philippine Span Asia Carrier Corp. -- last October to pay P241.7 million in damages to the families of the victims. Nobody has been held criminally liable for the sinking.
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