2 sunken vessel survivors return home

The coast guard said they were initially able to receive a distress call from the MV Gulf Livestock 1 which prompted their search and rescue operations

Two survivors of the rescued Filipino seafarers from the sunken Panamanianflagged vessel were set to return to the country Saturday, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has announced.

In a statement, the DFA said that the three crew members were located by the Japanese Coast Guard days after their ship sank due to engine trouble as they were also hit by the ravaging typhoon “Maysak” in the East China Sea.

However, one of them was later pronounced dead at the hospital after he was pulled out of the sea already unconscious.

The two survivors were identified as Chief Officer Eduardo Sareno and A/B Jay-nel Rosales.

The coast guard said they were initially able to receive a distress call from the MV Gulf Livestock 1 which prompted their search and rescue operations.

On Friday, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said that he along with the Japanese government have decided to continue the operations.

“The Japanese government & ambassador & I are on this and Japan did not cease its search that Saturday but had in fact continued it against protocol,” he wrote on Twitter.

Earlier the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo and the Philippine Consulate General in Osaka said that the coast guard has shif ted into its ‘usual patrol arrangements’ as no traces of the ship or the crew have been found since 5 September.

Despite this, Locsin said he refuses to ask for the assistance of other Asian countries in the search claiming that it will be an ‘attack on the sovereignty of Japan.’

This came after Sen. Risa Hontiveros previously addressed a letter to Locsin urging for other nations such as the Philippines, New Zealand and Australia to participate in the rescue operations.

In total, around 43 crew members were said to be aboard the ship in which 39 were Filipinos, two were Kiwi, and two others were Australian. All supposedly set to deliver almost 6,000 cattles.

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said that the Sareno and Rosales were to home around five in the afternoon onboard a Philippine Airlines flight.

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