12 June 2006
LEGAZPI CITY—“WE SPENT ALmost P40,000 for the wake of my father. The coffin cost P35,000. They said they would shoulder all the expenses but they only gave us P13,000,” Annabelle Magdaraog told the Inquirer in a mobile phone interview.
Annabelle is among relatives of victims of the M/B Mae Ann tragedy, which cost the lives of 27 passengers at the height of typhoon Caloy, who are now in the dark on how to claim compensation from the boat’s owner, the Lobrigo Shipping Lines (LSL).
Annabelle is the eldest daughter of Wilfredo Magdaraog, the inspector of the boat Mae Ann 5 which sank less than a mile away from the Masbate port at Barangay Kinamaligan at 2:30 a.m. on May 12 at the height of Typhoon Caloy.
Lt. Edgar Boado, station commander of the Philippine Coast Guard in Masbate, said the boat hit a motorized banca as it was about to pull back and was engulfed by big waves.
Anabelle added that the LSL management promised them P50,000, setting aside its first promise to shoulder all their expenses for the wake and burial of her father.
“The P50,000 was all they wanted to give even if my father was an employee of their company. They also hadn’t been releasing money for my father’s SSS [account],” Annabelle complained.
LSL owner Nestor Lobrigo and boat captain Rudy Enepequis were absent during the hearing scheduled by the Maritime Industry Authority at the Marina regional office at 2 p.m. on June 6 prompting the office to reset it to June 23.
Nelson Ramos, Lobrigo’s legal counsel, said his client failed to appear in the hearing because he was under medication in Manila due to hypertension, which, he said, was caused by the stress brought about by the Mae Ann’s sinking.
However, Annabelle said the real reason for Lobrigo’s absence was that he wanted to escape responsibilities.
“He was just pretending to be sick and he could not be in Manila for medication because yesterday he was here in Pilar, Sorsogon (where Lobrigo is a councilor). He really just didn’t want to face people who might remind him of his forgotten obligations,” Annabelle said.
The Inquirer tried to get the side of Ramos, being the representative of Lobrigo in the postponed hearing, but he refused to be interviewed, saying they did not have the time as they were catching up the last boat trip to Masbate City.
Marina regional director Lucita Madarang said if the principal respondents still failed to appear in the next hearing on June 23, they would base their judgment on their own assessment of the case.
The hearing could have been a venue to clarify the contradicting sworn statements submitted earlier by the survivors and the boat captain.
Madarang said the survivors claimed in their sworn statements that the boat captain did not advise them not to sleep inside the boat during the storm.
Enepequis, on the other hand, claimed that the passengers did not listen when he told them not to sleep inside the boat because it was risky.
He said some of the passengers did not want to leave the boat for fear of losing their paid seats, while some claimed they could not afford to lodge somewhere else till the storm was over,” Madarang said.
The Philippine Coast Guard in Masbate City has filed a criminal case of gross negligence resulting in multiple homicide against Enepequis.
Madarang said Enepequis was directly accountable for the passengers’ safety in the freak accident.
“If Enepequis is proved to be guilty of negligence of duty, we will cancel his boat captain license and the franchise of the Lobrigo Shipping Lines,” she said.
The Mae Ann 5 sank near the shore when it was being maneuvered away from the M/B Morifan.
Madarang said initial findings also showed that many passengers died because they were trapped inside the capsized boat, whose exits were closed because of the storm.
Some of the passengers were also sleeping when the accident happened, which might have caused them to panic when they woke up submerged in sea waters. Ephraim Aguilar, PDI Southern Luzon Bureau
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