EDITORIAL - Taking safety for granted

In this land of skewed priorities, one of the most neglected aspects is the safety of maritime transportation. The nation was reminded of this once again last Tuesday, when a vessel laden with 1,450 tons of coconut oil caught fire and sank off the coast of Sorsogon. The MT Isabela Angelica was on its way to Batangas City from Legazpi. Twelve of its crew members were rescued but three could not be found.

That was a minor disaster compared with the numerous others that have occurred with alarming regularity over the years. In this archipelago of 7,100 islands, maritime transportation is one of the most affordable and sometimes the only means of reaching remote islands. Yet the enforcement of safety standards in maritime travel has been dismal. Little improvement has been seen even after the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster – the collision of the ferry Doña Paz and oil tanker Vector – occurred in Philippine waters in 1987, killing an estimated 4,300 people.

Many other maritime disasters have occurred since that collision, claiming hundreds of lived. Every disaster would be followed by an investigation that invariably would end nowhere. Ferries are still overloaded, with many passengers not listed in manifests. Ship operators still refuse to invest in the proper maintenance of aging vessels. Combustible cargo such as copra and oil are stowed haphazardly, easily ignited with a carelessly discarded smoldering cigarette butt – one reason ferries keep catching fire and sinking. And many ships are still manned by poorly trained or unqualified crew.

Many major shipping companies have modernized their fleet and tightened compliance with maritime safety rules. Still, the pace of reforms in the industry has been depressingly slow. Many shipping firms are nothing more than mom-and-pop enterprises, operating on tight budgets, and they manage to flout safety regulations because the agencies tasked to enforce the rules allow violators to get away with murder. Few shipping operators have been penalized for negligence resulting in the deaths of passengers. Even fewer public officials have been punished for failure to enforce rules on maritime safety. Disaster survivors and relatives of fatalities, often the less privileged who can’t afford to travel by plane, are rarely able to collect compensation.

Ferries will again be packed as the Christmas holidays approach and people trek to the countryside for family gatherings. With many ships overloaded, another major disaster cannot be ruled out. Filipinos will continue risking their necks on such modes of transportation until national leaders stop taking maritime safety for granted.