NEARLY three weeks on from the tragic sinking of the passenger ferry MV Trisha Kerstin 3 near Basilan on Jan. 26, search and recovery divers are still retrieving bodies of the victims; 52 so far. Since it is uncertain and may never be determined exactly how many people were on board the ill-fated vessel, there may be victims yet to recover, and some that unfortunately may have vanished without a trace.
The story of the Trisha Kerstin 3 is depressingly familiar. An overloaded vessel of questionable fitness, poor handling by its crew, hints of corruption in regulations and safety protocols being ignored. The aftermath of the tragedy is just as depressingly familiar, however, with involved Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) and Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) personnel being relieved, promises of administrative and criminal charges against those responsible for the tragedy, and reassurances that new rules and processes will be swiftly implemented “to ensure that this will not happen again,” in the exact words of Transportation Secretary Giovanni Lopez to reporters on Wednesday.
But it does happen again. And again, and again. It has happened twice in less than three years to ships belonging to the owner of the Trisha Kerstin 3, Aleson Shipping Lines. In 2023, the Aleson-owned ferry MV Lady Mary Joy 3 caught fire and sank in almost the same location as the Trisha Kerstin 3, killing 31 people. And Aleson Shipping Lines can hardly be considered an outlier. In an eight-day span between Jan. 18 and Jan. 26, there were three significant fatal maritime accidents: a dive excursion boat in the Davao Gulf that sank for unknown reasons, killing 15 of the 16 aboard; a Singapore-flagged, Filipino-crewed bulk carrier that sank near the Scarborough Shoal, with the loss of six of the 21 aboard; and Trisha Kerstin 3.
While the loss of the Trisha Kerstin 3 has been attributed to “human error” and “negligence” by government authorities and maritime experts, the stark fact that “human error” and “negligence” are repeated over and over again points to a systemic root cause rather than mere human factors. We are not so conceited as to suggest that we can offer a simple answer to what the systemic flaws may be, but we can at least suggest where the analysis should begin.
Passenger- and cargo-carrying vessels and their crews in the Philippines are regulated by Marina, an agency under the Department of Transportation, in a similar manner to the regulation of road vehicles and drivers are regulated by the Land Transportation Office, and the Land Transport Franchising and Regulatory Board. The PCG, an agency under the Department of the Interior and Local Government, is responsible for law enforcement and safety at sea. Thus, Marina and the PCG work in tandem; Marina provides the regulations, and the PCG enforces them. In practical terms, the PCG is the last line of defense for safety before a vessel departs, ensuring that it is seaworthy and in good working order, properly loaded, properly registered and licensed, and has the required safety equipment and procedures in place.
On the face of things, there is nothing obviously flawed or out-of-place about this administrative framework. After all, it is a common enough arrangement, and to be clear, it does work, most of the time. Hundreds of passenger and cargo vessels sail through Philippine waters every day without incident. But “most of the time” is hardly good enough, especially for the 73 — and possibly more — families who lost loved ones and had their lives turned upside down in a single week last month, to say nothing of the hundreds of passengers and ship crewmen who survived but have to contend with the lingering mental and physical trauma of the experience.
A single passenger lost is a failure of the system. And while we can certainly acknowledge that the sincere intention behind the design of the current system is to prevent that from ever happening, it clearly does not work. The families of 52 dead passengers from the Trisha Kerstin 3 would certainly agree, as would those of the thousands of people lost due to maritime accidents over the decades. There are obviously loopholes in the framework that allow “human error and negligence” to manifest themselves with tragic results. The administrative and regulatory framework needs to be carefully assessed by maritime stakeholders — including passengers and cargo shippers — to identify and close those loopholes.
