Revisiting Doña Paz

CHEERS TO the Philippine Daily Inquirer and GMA News TV for reminding the public of the horrors of the sinking of the passenger ship MV Doña Paz, which was the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in world history.

The collision between the  Doña Paz and the oil tanker MT Vector, which happened on Dec. 20, 1987, resulted in the deaths of more than 4,000 people. Twenty-five years after the disaster, the survivors and the families of the victims are still waiting for justice.

On Dec. 20, 2012, the Inquirer featured accounts by some of the 26 survivors of the tragedy. (“Doña Paz victims waiting for justice 25 years after”)

“A class suit arising from the accident, which alleges negligence on the part of Caltex Philippines, charterer of the Vector, is dragging in a civil district court in the US state of Louisiana on a question of jurisdiction. It was filed in December 1988,” the Inquirer reported.

“Meanwhile, Sulpicio Lines Inc., which owned and operated the Doña Paz, has figured in four more maritime accidents that took hundreds of lives. In a bid to shake off its bad image, the company changed its name to Philippines Span Asia Carrier Corp. in 2010.”

“The Doña Paz tragedy and the maritime accidents that came after it have led to the introduction of legislation in Congress that would modernize the country’s shipping industry. Among the proposals is a new maritime code, but the bill is stalled because of other priority measures,” the report added.

The Inquirer noted the congressional inquiries into the incident, and the legal cases as well as out-of-court settlements related to the tragedy.

Last Dec. 9, GMA News TV aired “Asia’s Titanic”, a National Geographic documentary on  the sinking of the Doña Paz. The 2009 documentary also contained first-hand accounts by survivors and rescuers, a re-enactment of what happened, and  transcripts from the congressional inquiries into the incident.