“LOST HOPE”
Myra Cabilan told AFP she had flown to Coron to find her missing brother, 40-year-old Rammel Gonzaga, who had taken the ferry from Manila on a business trip with his brother-in-law.
“His wife had just given birth a month ago. He was so happy he was given a daughter,” Cabilan said, fighting back tears.
“At dawn, I still believed he survived. But he’s still missing. I have lost hope.”
Hundreds of people desperate for news about the incident have taken to leaving comments on the Facebook page of a local mayor, searching for relatives, friends and even a dog.
The ferry’s manifest listed 134 crew and passengers, but two had not boarded, according to the coast guard. The ferry was also carrying goods, an electric vehicle, a pickup truck, and motorcycles.
The archipelago nation of 116 million has a long history of disasters involving the inter-island ferries that ply its seas.
Many rely on cheap and poorly regulated boats and ships for transport between the country’s more than 7,000 islands, despite regular accidents.
In January, a triple-decker ferry carrying more than 340 people sank off the southern Philippines, killing at least 52 people.
The M/V Trisha Kerstin 3 sank along nearly the same route where 31 people died in 2023 after a fire broke out aboard the Lady Mary Joy 3 ferry.
On Thursday, the company that owns the M/V June Aster, Atienza Interisland Ferries Inc, said it was fully cooperating with the investigation.
