Thursday, June 26, 2008 Forensic team arrives By Linette C. Ramos Sun.Star Staff Reporter With Katrina A. Balmaceda & Charmaine Y. Rodriguez
FOURTEEN forensic experts arrived in Cebu City yesterday, as local authorities and relatives prepared for the heartbreaking task of identifying victims from the Princess of the Stars.
Acting Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama is confident the forensics team from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Manila will be able to identify the bodies and that the identification will run smoothly given the team’s expertise.
“Procedures for their operations have already been laid down in anticipation of what will happen in the days to come,” Rama told Sun.Star Cebu.
Rama, City Councilor Gerardo Carillo and other city officials discussed the possible scenarios with the forensic experts in a closed-door meeting at City Hall yesterday.
All recovered bodies will be brought to Cebu, as agreed on by city officials and Sulpicio Lines Inc., said Carillo.
Bodies are expected to arrive anytime today.
Records
Most of the members of the team helped identify the victims in the Ginsaugon landslide in 2006, the tsunami in Thailand in 2005, the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 and in several sea tragedies, Rama said.
“We are dealing with not just one body, not 10, not 20. The number of survivors is not that many, so we already know what we should anticipate. All the response teams involved already know what to do,” Rama added.
Dr. Renato Bautista, chief of the NBI’s Medico-Legal Division, will lead the forensics team in Cebu. Another team was formed and will be on standby in Manila.
They will identify the bodies through fingerprints and dental records, in coordination with their family and relatives.
So that the victims can be identified more easily, Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 Chief Ronald Roderos asked the crowd to present Sulpicio Lines with information. This includes dental records and physical descriptions, especially a person’s height, build, hair and, if possible, the clothes he wore on the vessel.
Assistance
In a separate interview, Carillo said that Sulpicio Lines Inc. will shoulder all the expenses in the transport, identification and embalming of the bodies brought to Cebu.
“From the planes or vessels that would transport them, the bodies will be brought directly to the morgue for embalming or cleaning. They will be placed in caskets and will be brought to the Police Regional Office 7 chapel for viewing and identification by a family member,” Carillo said.
TV Patrol Central Visayas reported yesterday that a cargo vessel picked up the body of a man floating in the seas of Masbate.
The body, which arrived in the Cebu port at 6 a.m. yesterday, was brought to Rolling Hills Memorial Chapel. He wore an orange uniform with “Athena” printed on it. He also had a tattoo.
The survivors and the family members of the missing passengers can avail themselves of stress debriefing by social welfare personnel and volunteers from the Salvation Army at the Cebu City Sports Center gym 24 hours a day.
Department of Social Welfare and Development 7 Director Teodulo Romo said he expects the family members to need counseling, especially when the bodies arrive in Cebu.
Reunited
When two survivors arrived at the Cebu City Sports Complex yesterday, hundreds of men and women rushed to see if the two were the loved ones they each had been looking for.
But the two had already been reunited with their families, after being spotted off Sibuyan at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Oliver Amores, who hails from Olango Island, and Jessie Buot, a Siquijor native, swam six hours from the sea to Sibuyan Island’s shores in the province of Romblon.
They arrived at the sports complex past 3 p.m. yesterday, stealing the attention from an ongoing press conference.
Speaking at the conference were Rama; Roderos, as chief of the Regional Disaster Coordinating Council; and Manuel Espina, a lawyer for Sulpicio Lines, the company that owns the mv Princess of the Stars.
About a thousand men and women spent the whole day at the sports complex, all relatives of passengers aboard the sunken vessel. Many had been there the day before, keeping vigil in the hope that information about their loved ones would reach them.
But Espina announced in the press conference that no bodies—dead or alive—from the vessel would be arriving in Cebu yesterday.
Anxiety
The crowd had expected 10 recovered bodies and 14 survivors to arrive in Cebu by late afternoon.
An initially somber crowd heated up when men and women started voicing out their questions and concerns.
The crowd wanted to know if Sulpicio Lines was willing to extend help even after official rescue efforts have stopped.
Roderos assured the tense relatives that they would search for bodies and survivors “until satisfied.”
Rama said he has instructed the rescue team and Sulpicio Lines to bring all the victims to Cebu.
Of the 863 passengers and crew, 496 were from Cebu.
