Nirvana sinking calls for a wider look at maritime industry

IN our archipelagic nation, boats remain our people’s principal means of travelling from one island to another. It seems, however, that year after year, we have passenger vessels sinking and scores of people dying. In the last one in Ormoc, Leyte, 61 died when a ferry with over 200 aboard capsized as it left port for its regular run to the Camotes islands in Cebu.

The waters were rough but there was no storm in the vicinity at the time and the boat was thus permitted by the Coast Guard to leave port. Survivors said the boat was backing out of the port and was making a turn when it overturned, apparently hit by a wave. Many were able to jump into the sea, but some were trapped inside the overturned vessel.

As in all previous incidents, an investigation will be conducted. It will determine if the vessel was overloaded with passengers and cargo, whether it had enough life jackets, whether a wrong maneuver by the captain and the crew caused the boat to flip to one side and capsize.

The government should go beyond investigating the circumstances of the sinking of the motorized banca Kim Nirvana and look at the entire interisland shipping industry. The Nirvana had a second deck added to it; was that structure, which was not in the original configuration of the boat, approved by any regulatory agency of the government? The boat’s outriggers snapped during the accident; were they part of the original vessel, or were they mere additions that also never passed any government inspection and approval?

And the Nirvana is only one of hundreds of such bancas plying the waters between our many islands today. How safe are all these bancas that more properly belong to our rivers and other inland waters?

Sen. Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino said that as early as 2014, he filed a Senate resolution calling on the government to investigate the seaworthiness of all maritime vessels in the country. The resolution, he said, was just set aside.

With or without a Senate resolution, the national government should undertake such an investigation. The Coast Guard checks only on passengers and cargo to ensure there is no overloading. It also enforces bans on sea travel when the weather bureau issues its typhoon warning signal. It is time to go beyond these usual measures and conduct a review of the interisland shipping industry to see where additional precautions must be taken, before we have another sea tragedy like the sinking of the Nirvana in Ormoc, Leyte.