MORE than 30 passengers of a motor banca were rescued in the waters of Hilutungan, Cordova Friday night.
According to Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) Cebu Station Commander Agapito Bibat, the passengers included 15 children. They were on board an unregistered fishing vessel bound for Getafe, Bohol.
“These motor bancas are unregistered that’s why we can’t monitor them regularly,” Bibat said in Cebuano.
Staff from a nearby beach resort rescued the victims when they saw the vessel sink.
One of the survivors, 20-year-old Raenel Bihasa, hails from the island of Banakon in Getafe.
He said they boarded the fishing vessel at the Pasil Fish Port in Cebu City. Around 3 p.m., they arrived in Tangke, Talisay to collect more passengers.
Panic
The motor banca, which could only carry 10 persons, ended up carrying 35.
“Water entered the vessel around 6:30 p.m. after the engine exploded and made a hole at the back,” Bihasa said in Cebuano.
Bihasa said they started to panic when they couldn’t bail the water out fast enough.
He said they were worried for the children on board so they started chucking cargo, mostly sacks of rice for the upcoming fiesta in Getafe, into the water to gain some stability.
But that did not stop the water from entering, causing the motor banca to sink.
“We let the children cling to the wooden outrigger so they could save themselves,” he said in Cebuano.
The children included two one-year-olds.
About an hour later, the motor banca sank, leaving only the upper part afloat where passengers hung on until a group of tourists on board a boat from the Nalusuan Beach Resort passed by and rescued them.
New substations
Heindrich Mendoza, the resort manager, instructed the captain of the resort’s boat to tow the capsized boat all the way to Getafe where they were welcomed by the barangay captain and were fed.
It is difficult for the PCG and the Maritime Industry Authority to penalize the motor banca’s operator since none of the passengers know who he or she is.
The PCG, for its part, said it will create sub-units in Cebu to man areas where there are many sea-traveling passengers namely CG Substation Consuelo in Camotes, CG Substation Pulang-bato in Bogo and CG Substation Maya in Daanbantayan.
These substations will monitor unregistered and overloaded fishing vessels to prevent accidents.