Why the MV Great Faith escaped and the MT Damar did not

A few days ago, a fairly large ship called MT Damar, an oil tanker, grazed one of the piers supporting the Marcelo Fernan Bridge, the second bridge linking the island of Mactan to Cebu mainland.

The accident, by itself, was not exactly something " bridge-shaking " as there was not even much physical evidence to suggest something has happened had there been no witnesses who saw it.

Indeed, the witnesses probably would not have even bothered to report to the authorities had the ship not done something extraordinary, which was to sail away at full steam in an unusual case of " hit and run " at sea.

Despite the accident being seemingly minor, the fact that it involved a bridge, and a very busy one at that, should have instilled in the captain of the ship a certain degree of responsibility.

What the captain should have done was not to flee but to alert the authorities about the accident so that the necessary measures may be undertaken to check the structural integrity of the span to determine if its safety had not been compromised.

But like a growing number of motorists on the road, the captain decided to make a dash for it. A few days later, authorities caught up with the ship somewhere in Mindanao. Suffice it to say that the captain should now be up to his neck in hot water.

What many may not have realized, or may have forgotten, is that right within the vicinity of the accident, another incident involving another fairly large ship happened several years ago.

On Christmas Eve of 2001, the MV Great Faith, carrying a cargo of more than 20,000 bags of smuggled rice, slipped its moorings at the Ouano Wharf in Mandaue City, where it was being held under armed guard since its seizure three months earlier, and disappeared into the night.

By daybreak, a " massive " sea and air search was launched by the different armed services. No trace of the ship was found. The search went on for several says, with the military spending millions of pesos on fuel alone for the different assets involved.

It was as if God Himself plucked the MV Great Faith from the face of the earth on the day Jesus Christ was born and did not tell anyone about it. Otherwise, there was no physical reason why the ship could not be found.

The area involved in the incident is one of the busiest sea lanes in the Philippines, considering that Cebu is the seat of the shipping industry in the country. There was no way the MV Great Faith could not have been spotted by anyone, even by those not involved in the search.

And then there is the matter of speed. Ships of the same classification as the MV Great Faith are normally capable of doing no more than 22 knots. Factor in its cargo of more than 20,000 bags of rice, and it could not have gotten far from the time it escaped to daybreak.

But disappear it did. To this very day, more than six years later, no trace of the ship has ever been found. To try to understand what happened, it is therefore necessary to compare it with the MT Damar incident.

The MT Damar figured in a physical accident from which it tried to escape. It was a foolish gambit because nobody likes " hit and run " incidents. By contrast, the MV Great Faith was involved in smuggling worth many millions of pesos that could make a lot of people happy.

People who see someone fleeing from the scene of an accident will see red. But people who see someone fleeing with a lot of money will see only the opportunity to cash in by seeing nothing.