MANILA -- Almost seven years after the sinking of M/V Princess of the Stars, the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) has revoked Sulpicio Lines Inc.'s authority to carry passengers across the sea.
In a 50-page ruling in the administrative case against Sulpicio Lines, now called Span Asia Carrier, Marina cancelled the Certificate of Public Convenience it granted to the firm on May 16, 2005, which was supposed to be effective for 25 years.
Because of this, Span Asia Carrier will only be limited to cargo operation.
Marina also slapped Span Asia Carrier a fine of only P800 for traveling with endosulfan, a kind of corrosive substance, marine pollutant and delicate cargo, without a special permit on the day when the accident happened.
Marina ordered the review of Memorandum Circular No. 120, Series of 1997, which was used as basis in the imposition of P800 fine against Span Asia Carrier, since such amount was not sufficient to cover for the damage suffered.
In the same ruling, Marina dismissed the complaint against the officials and crew members of M/V Princess of the Stars for lack of evidence.
Marina did not give weight to the defense of Span Asia Carrier that the alleged inaccurate forecast by the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) contributed to the list of causes of the sinking of their Cebu-bound ship on June 21, 2008 in Sibuyan Sea.
According to Marina, when Pagasa issued an update about the movement and exit of Typhoon Frank (international name: Fengshen) on June 20, 2008 at 11 p.m., the ship was still in Batangas waters and that there was still time to take shelter, but it did not do it and instead, it still continued with the voyage.
It is not Pagasa's mandate to prevent ships from plying their route in case of a storm.
Frank was forecast to take a west northwest direction but it became west eventually, a deviation found "not so big" by Marina because the ship would still have been affected even if the typhoon followed the forecast track.
"These failures caused the company the lives of the passengers and the cargoes. These failures indicate that respondent (Span Asia Carrier) failed to take the very exacting legal and moral requirement to exercise extraordinary diligence of a good father of a family as it is engaged in public service as a common carrier," the decision read.
Marina also could not believe that Span Asia Carrier was not aware that the ship was carrying endosulfan when it could have requested for documentation necessary to verify compliance with the law such as invoices, purchase order and sales agreements.
"It appears that based on the foregoing facts, there was negligence on the part of the respondent (Span Asia Carrier) by not requesting further documentation when it could do so in order to verify the true content of the container. Further, the respondent has failed to convince this Authority (Marina) that it has no knowledge of the misdeclaration," the decision stated.
It can be recalled that out of 851 passengers and crew members of M/V Princess of the Stars, only 32 of them survived the mishap. (Virgil Lopez/PNA/Sunnex)
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