Survivors happy with BMI report but still mad at Sulpicio

It was his last hope to run after the company whose alleged negligence may not have succeeded in taking his life, but destroyed it just the same.

This was the impassioned reaction of MV Princess of the Stars survivor Francisco Batula to the Board of Marine Inquiry’s report that Sulpicio Lines Inc. was accountable for the sinking of the ill-fated vessel.

Batula, a native of Samar province, said that Sulpicio Lines had not given any form of financial assistance to the survivors and the families left by those who died in the sea tragedy.

“I heard that Sulpicio gave P200,000 insurance money to the relatives of the dead,” Batula said in Filipino. He said that he only received P20,000 from the company’s insurance company as a survivor.

Small considering horror

“That’s too small, considering the horror we’ve gone through,” Batula said. He said he boarded the Princess of the Stars in June with the hopes of working as a tile-setter in Cebu City. However, his P5,000 worth of tools sank with the ill-starred ship. So did his dreams of a better job and a better life. “I want Sulpicio to pay for what I could have earned as a tile-setter,” said Batula, who now sells cigarettes in Cubao, Quezon City.

Eleanor Tria, a 28-year-old call center agent who lost her mother Gloria Catayas in the tragedy, said the BMI’s decision would strengthen the complaint they were planning to file against Sulpicio Lines. Catayas, a 54-year-old housewife, was to go home to Bohol via Cebu City after attending her son’s graduation in Manila.

Consolation to victims

“We are happy and thankful with the decision,” Tria said, pointing out that if the ship had not left the Port of Manila on June 20, the accident would not have happened. “The report is a consolation to the families of the victims,” Tria said.

She revealed that Sulpicio Lines had not offered relatives of the victims any form of assistance aside from the insurance money, adding that the employees even gave them a hard time while they were filing their financial claims. “They never reached out to us, considering that our mother was a passenger who was supposed to be in their care,” Tria said.

Dante Jimenez, leader of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, who is assisting the victims in their court battle against Sulpicio Lines, said the BMI decision would encourage more families to file complaints against the company. “The report only gives credence to allegations that officials of the company and the ship captain must be held liable for the deaths of the passengers,” Jimenez said.