The skipper and crew of the MV Baleno 9 were in the middle of a party with fast-food and beverages when the roll-on, roll-off vessel began to sink off Batangas province a day after Christmas, one of the survivors told a Senate hearing on Thursday. “I saw they had food and intoxicating beverages in cans,” Jonathan Umali, who was on the ship's deck at the time, testified before the Senate blue ribbon committee. Umali said he had seen the ship's captain, Jimmy Andal, with the group. “It seemed like he wanted me out of there,” he said. He added that a crew member of the ship he identified only as Banaldal confirmed to him that they had been reveling while sailing. At least six people have been confirmed dead while 44 others remained missing when Baleno 9, owned by Besta Shipping Lines, sank near Verde Island on Dec. 26. The government has since suspended the shipping firm's franchise. Umali's revelation, however, was not new to committee chairman Sen. Richard Gordon, who said he had first learned about it when he went to Mindoro to help in the rescue efforts of the Philippine National Red Cross, which he also heads. During the hearing, Gordon showed video footage of the crew who he said looked tipsy. Maria Elena Bautista, administrator of the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina), said crew members of sea vessels are prohibited from drinking and partying while sailing, but admitted that they have no way of enforcing this. “I'm looking into the purchase of breath analyzers so that we can assess the crew's alcohol level,” she told reporters after the hearing. Patrick Ang, one of the owners of Besta Shipping Lines, was present at the hearing but did not comment on Umali's testimony. He immediately left the venue after the hearing without speaking to the media. The firm's lawyer, Arthur Lim, also declined to comment. “You will have the opportunity to hear the evidence later,” he said after attending a separate Marina hearing on the incident. During the Marina hearing, Lim moved to have the suspension order lifted even for his client's cargo vessels only, saying Besta Shipping Lines is a major player in the Batangas-Calapan route. “With the suspension, the remaining shipping lines operating in the sea route will face hard times serving the high volume of cargo during this peak season,” he said in a motion. Meanwhile, a deep-sea diver of the Coast Guard died Friday afternoon after retrieving a body from the sunken ferry MV Catalyn B off Limbones Island in Cavite province. Commodore Luis Tuazon Jr., PCG-National Capital Region commander, said Petty Officer 3 Armand Bonifacio was declared dead on arrival at the Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center at 3:40 P.M.. Tuazon said Bonifacio collapsed after he and his buddy, a certain Petty Officer Cahilig, retrieved a woman's body from the Catalyn B, which is sitting 221 feet under the waters off Limbones Island in Maragondon town. He said that based on the doctors' initial findings, the diver died after suffering from cardiac arrest. - GMANews.TV/ABS
