Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) administrator Elena Bautista said Saturday that the owner of the ill-fated MV Baleno 9 has gone into hiding. “The owner of Baleno 9 is not cooperative. We cannot find him,” Bautista, who is also Transportation undersecretary, told Vice President Noli de Castro over his radio dzMM program. Bautista was referring to Pedro Ang of Besta Shipping Lines, which owns the roll-on, roll-off ferry that sank off Isla Verde Island in Batangas province on Dec. 26. The mishap left 6 people dead and 47 more missing. The Marina head said her office has made several attempts to contact the ship owner by phone. She said her staff have also tried to personally see Ang, but to no avail. “We are here to help. We need to help the families of the missing people. We cannot help them if [the shipping company] will not cooperate with us,” she said, adding that it is the shipping firms' responsibility to retrieve the bodies of the 47 missing passengers. Bautista said the Marina has sent a letter to Ang, informing him of a 5-day deadline to come up with a concrete timeline for the search and retrieval of the 47 missing passengers. She said the deadline will end Monday. Bautista said the Marina has also issued a similar letter to the owner of another ill-fated ferry, MV Catalyn B. She said the company has already assured compliance. Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo, commandant of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), said they will start investigations on the sinking of the ferry right after the retrieval of the missing passengers. Tamayo said they have yet to determine the exact number of total passengers of the ferry when it sank. He said the ferry's crew had initially told Coast Guard inspectors that the vessel had 20 ticketed passengers. But a supplemental manifest, submitted to coast guard inspectors hours after the sinking, revealed that the ferry had more than 120 passengers. Tamayo said 67 passengers have been rescued by the PCG. The shipping lines's four other ferries have been grounded, the Marina head said. Tamayo said the PCG also has already shifted from rescue to search and retrieval of the 24 missing passengers of the Catalyn B that sank 2 nautical miles from Limbones Island in Maragondon town, Cavite province last Dec. 24. He said a team of Coast Guard divers with a remote-operated vehicle (ROV) returned to the waters off Limbones Island on Saturday morning. He said the team will try to find a way on how to get inside the ship's wreckage and retrieve the trapped bodies. - ABS
