an interesting tidbit from 2008:Princess of the Stars 5th to sink, not 4th
July 7, 2008
MANILA, Philippines – I wonder why the vessel MV Boholana Princess, also owned by Sulpicio Lines, is never mentioned among the Sulpicio vessels that sank. I also wonder why there was no news of the sinking at that time.
I was a passenger on that ill-fated voyage and here’s my first-hand account: MV Boholana Princess left Cebu for Ormoc at 11 p.m. on Dec. 15,1990. Past midnight, the boat suddenly tilted to the left at an angle of 45 degrees. Passengers were startled out of their sleep, wondering what was happening. But there was no announcement through the public address system, or word from the ship’s captain and crew, about what was going on.
The passengers then scrambled to get life jackets. It was so dark outside the boat that jumping into the sea never crossed our minds. We were stranded for hours. Fishermen arrived to rescue us. But up to that point, there was still no announcement from the captain or from any crew member about what was happening. Finally, we started to evacuate the sinking vessel—with help from the fishermen, but none from the crew. Eventually, we all made it out of the ship.
Oh, by the way, before we left the boat, a guy asked us to surrender the vests we were wearing because they belonged to Sulpicio Lines. Yes, this happened many years ago, but everything is still so vivid in my mind because that incident made me scared of riding boats. This may be hearsay: while we were still on board, there was talk that the boat had hit a reef while the crew were in a drinking session. Still, we were all just grateful to God that nobody perished in that accident. It was all that mattered to us then—that we all came out of the accident alive.
In retrospect, we could have filed a suit against Sulpicio Lines because there was no announcement from the captain and crew about what had happened, and there was no rescue effort initiated by Sulpicio Lines.
Maybe the incident was never reported because there was no casualty. But all the passengers felt that the accident was caused by gross negligence. I hope an investigation into this incident will be conducted, because that will establish that MV Princess of the Stars was the fifth—not the fourth—Sulpicio ship to sink.
—GARDENIA LARRAZABAL, via e-mail
We checked this account with the Philippine Coast Guard. It is indeed on record that MV Boholana Princess, among 14 Sulpicio vessels that figured in an accident between 1986 and 1998, ran aground in 1990.—Ed. (A Letter from a PDI Reader)Posted in M/V Princess of the Stars, Thypoon Frank
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