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58 injured as ship collides with barge | Inquirer News
Almost every 2 to 3 years, sea accidents or mishaps are always happening in Cebu. I am really sad that until now, not much has been done coming from our authorities in order to prevent these accidents from happening over and over again. If we may recall, the last sea collision that happened in Cebu was just almost 5 years ago, it was the the fate of MV St Thomas Aquinas which sank after colliding with Sulpicio Express Siete. It resulted in hundreds of lives lost and towards the end of BMI inquiries, both captains of vessels where let go and not much damage was paid coming from both ship companies to the victims.
Now, the question that we are supposed to be asking is this. Why are these sea mishaps always happening? What has government done to improve our infrastructures at sea? We have the PCG, MARINA, BMI etc....but do they have enough experience in order to tackle these problems? It seems that after all, their meetings are just for show to the public.
In here, I will try my best to explain the gaps that Philippine authorities must fulfill in order to prevent these accidents from happening again.
The world of Shipping is a very HIGHLY technical matter.
COLLISION
First, let us check the latest accident that is being reported in the media 2 days ago. For this reason, we are going to used COLREG rules.
In here we see that a collision has again happened in Mactan channel –near the 1
st Mactan-Mandaue bridge , between a fast ferry and a barge that is being towed by a tug boat.
If you ask any Pinoy Captain that has more than 10 years sailing experience, navigating in international waters, you could see that MV St. Braquiel is 80% to blame for the collision. As per COLREG rules 5 Look-out; perhaps no crew was on standby and COLREG 6 Safe Speed; the ferry must have been proceeding fast in a narrow channel.
Next, we go to the barge. I have seen many in-service barges in Cebu that has no installation of Visibility lights. Remaining blame would fall to the owners of the barge for failing to install Visibility lights as per COLREG 3, 20, 21, 22 & 27. Steel barges are not excempt from this statutory rule. This is in the event, that the crew may testify in courts that they did not see any visible light that might tell them the location of the barge before the collision.
Depending on the circumstances of the investigation, both the ferry and tugboat may also be held liable for failure avoid the collision as per COLREG Section 2 , Conduct of Vessels in Sight of one another, rules 11 – 18.
Third, we go to the Vessel Traffic Management System (VTMS) of Cebu. If indeed the VTMS in port of Cebu is already in-placed, then why did this collision happened? We note that these accidents happened during night time. Was there no one else on duty during night time? Operating a VTMS system is a 24 hour schedule which is the same as how the control towers in an airport function where they give advice by radio communication to all in-going and departing airplanes.
Are signal bouys and lights placed in these narrow channels as per VTMS scheme? Perhaps none are functioning lately. Port of Cebu, hello?
MARITIME LAWS in the Philippines
None of the international conventions on maritime liens and mortgages has been ratified by the Philippines.
The Philippines is not a signatory to the 1910 Brussels Convention on Collision nor has it participated in the latest IMO LLMC , updated on 2012.
The Philippines uses a “Mixed” law where some branches of the law are then based on civil law, while other are based on common law. To sum up, the difference between the two systems is the source of the law.
Common law gives paramount effect to the judges’ decisions. Judicial cases constitute the source of the law. With civil law, there was an attempt to imagine and create codes, statutes, rules that would cover any possible cases. Previous judgments on similar cases only serve as reference or guidance.
The differences between the two systems explain why some countries’ jurisdictions are favoured for the resolution of claims. It is a shared belief that cases are more likely to be solved quickly under common law, seen as a more pragmatic system, capable of adapting to new circumstances.
It is also estimated that common law has participated in the commercial growth and wealth of countries such as the UK and the US being a complete, detailed system, with less possibilities for interpretations.
Hence, we go back to the collision when victims of the accident will file for claims and damages towards the ship owners. Of course, they can file criminal charges to the ship owners and most of the time they will settle for a very small amount (likely 200php per victim). Without the proper International Conventions in place in our country, the victims cannot ask for more damages and in this case, the city of Cebu cannot ask for more from the ship owners in case of an oil spill. The 200php amount is still paltry when compared to other countries where they could ask up to 10,000 USD for each victim and Port authorities could ask 2 to 3 million USD for the clean up. This is a loophole in the law that is being abused by greedy local shipping companies. Perhaps their ships don't even have proper P&I insurance coverages.
You don’t need to be a lawyer to understand these things but it seems like we are always being lied by local shipping companies here and worst of all, the media has ALWAYS failed to look in this angle. If I were to send this long essay, to the press, I’m sure this would not be published.
CONCLUSION
In the beginning, I wrote that the shipping industry is a highly technical matter.
From what I wrote and explain above, I hope that all of you can understand that now.
Our local authorities like MARINA , Port of Cebu etc… don’t have enough knowledge to tackle these issues.
The MARINA for its part has failed to check and inspect many of our local vessels which are already “unfit to sail”. Many don’t have updated stability calculations and load calculations. If an accident where to happen and the victims would file criminal charges to the ship owners. The stability and load plans will be used as evidence to support the claims of the victims in the court. With out it, the case could just be dismissed by the courts.
For the motor banca operators, perhaps the government could give them access to funds through a government program, were they can instead build new and sea worhty passener boats. (A small 30 footer fiberglass-hull Catamaran would be enough for a 15 person passenger vessel which is not that expensive)
The training of the inter-island ship crew must be improved. In some ship agencies in Manila, they don’t even accept apprentices coming from domestic since most of them lacked proper training and pardon me, lazy.
The fault goes to the shipmanagement of the ship owner’s. As painful as it is, but 72% of collision or accidents happen due to the negligence of the Captain of the vessel or crew. The remaining percentage goes to engine and machinery failure of the vessel.
Even with the present maritime accidents happening in our country, I have not seen any study conducted that is openly available to the public. Government should do something about this.
The BMI or Board of Inquiry is only a venue for investigation. It does not solve things permanently. These ship officers were just either nominated and does not have enough years of sailing experience. They cannot revoke the license of Master’s being found liable to the accident nor the crew involved. Both Captains from MV St Thomas Aquinas and Express Siete were dismissed from the case and are now maybe back to working again. In other countries, licenses would be revoke pending the judgement of the case. But having no admirality court, this is very difficult in our country.
The Port Authority of Cebu must also be upgraded, where they could give advice towards incoming and outgoing vessels in Cebu. A 24 hours standby in one of their control towers is a must. They must be fully conversant of VTMS. But perhaps lack of budget again? Or corruption? We can only wonder.
This is why in both Singapore and Hongkong, most of their local Port Authorities and Government agencies have continuing training and seminars with regards to the latest shipping technologies, rules and regulations. Their officers are fully conversant and informed resulting in low maritime accidents in their respective countries. That is why they always lead in shipping investments while we always lag behind.
Also, the Philippines being an archipelago and a maritime country, does not have Admirality courts. Similar to major countries like the U.K, Singapore , AUS and Hongkong, they have admirality courts where matters of the sea like claims would be resolved in a decent amount of time. Hence, the reason why these countries are leading in Shipping industry. Without an admirality court, the Philippines is left behind and thus the shipping industry in the country remains a “backyard industry”.
58 injured as ship collides with barge
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