Friday, July 04, 2008 Wenceslao: Loss-loss situation for Sulpicio By Bong O. Wenceslao Candid Thoughts
SEN. Rodolfo Biazon does some times get overboard when it comes to talk, but his Senate Bill No. 2417 does makes sense. The measure he filed last month calls for the creation of a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The NTSB, as conceived, “would ensure thorough and impartial investigations of transportation accidents.”
If a person commits a crime, he is not the one tasked to investigate himself. That’s why the composition of the Board of Marine Inquiry looking into the mv Princess of the Stars sinking is a bit questionable. That body has representatives from the Coast Guard, Maritime Industry Authority (Marina), Philippine Ports Authority and Master Mariners.
I am not underestimating the members of the Board because they are presumably experts in their fields and may be able to sift through the information they come across with independence and objectivity. But you go back to Caesar’s wife. Investigations of mishaps of the magnitude of Princess of the Stars sinking should be perceived as clean.
Here’s an example. It is not often that you see a big ship capsize (or some say turn belly up, although there should first be a unity on what part of a ship is the belly). Ships are supposed to be constructed to prevent it from turning upside down. That Princess of the Stars did has put into question the manner it was built or refurbished (refitted?).
That, I would say, is an issue that is within the sphere of Marina. It would be interesting to find out if the Board of Marine Inquiry will look into this angle. No problem with Coast Guard because it seems to have successfully evaded responsibility for Princess sailing despite the bad weather by waving a new policy on the matter.
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Sulpicio Lines Inc. should not begrudge politicians and well-meaning people advising it to shift to another business. Note the number of mishaps involving Sulpicio ships and the hundreds of lives lost. The Cebuano word is dimalas, although wags would quip swerte (every time a Sulpicio ship sinks, the firm is able to buy bigger vessels).
The point is that the shipping firm, even if it is able to survive financially the aftermath of the Princess sinking, will always be hounded by its past. In the unworldly sense, for example, some believe that the ghosts of the dead and the missing won’t leave a Sulpicio ship alone in the seas that have become their graveyard in past mishaps.
In the legal sense, at least one case from a past sinking is haunting the shipping firm again. A Regional Trial Court, a Sun.Star report said, has ordered Sulpicio to pay a family over P6 million in damages for the loss of a relative during the 1998 sinking of mv Princess of the Orient. That is only one case. There are those pending in other courts.
Of course, it is possible Sulpicio will come out of the Princess of the Stars tragedy more careful (although previous accidents may have weakened this theory). But even then, one could not say it won’t be hit by another sea mishap in the future (consider dimalas). I mean, it does look like Sulpicio is in a loss-loss situation from hereon.
(khanwens@yahoo.com/ my blog: cebuano.wordpress.com)
