MV Doña Paz

Sailors, medics, and officers as well as the captain of a passing inter-island ship, MS Don Claudio, witnessed the explosion of the two ships and after an hour, found the survivors of Doña Paz. The officers of Don Claudio threw a net for the survivors to climb to. In all, only 26 survivors were retrieved from the water: 24 of them were passengers from Doña Paz while the other 2 were crewmen from Vector's 13-man crew.[7][12] A 25th survivor from Doña Paz, Valeriana Duma, was not originally accounted for by officials, but later revealed herself through the GMA Network program Wish Ko Lang! in 2012; at 14, she was also the youngest passenger of Doña Paz to survive.[13] None of the crew of Doña Paz survived. Most of the survivors sustained burns from jumping into the flaming waters.[6] Doctors and nurses aboard the vessel tended to their injuries. It reportedly took eight hours before Philippine maritime authorities learned of the accident, and another eight hours to initiate search-and-rescue operations.[9]

According to the initial investigation conducted by the Philippine Coast Guard, only one apprentice member of the crew of Doña Paz was monitoring the bridge when the accident occurred.[14] Other officers were either drinking beer or watching television in the crew's recreation quarters,[15] while the ship's captain was watching a movie on his Betamax machine in his cabin.[16] A similar testimony was given by one of the survivors, Luthgardo Niedo, wherein he stated that a fellow constabulary soldier informed him of "an ongoing party with laughter and loud music" at the ship's bridge with the captain as one of the attendees.[17]

Survivors claimed that it was possible that Doña Paz may have carried as many as 3,000 to 4,000 passengers.[2][10] They considered as signs that the ferry was overcrowded the fact that they saw passengers sleeping along corridors, on the boat decks, or on cots with three or four persons on them.[10]

According to the initial announcement made by Sulpicio Lines, the official passenger manifest of Doña Paz recorded 1,493 passengers and 59 crew members aboard.[2][10] According to Sulpicio Lines, the ferry was able to carry 1,424 passengers.[6] A revised manifest released on December 23, 1987, showed 1,583 passengers and 58 crew members on Doña Paz, with 675 persons boarding the ferry in Tacloban, and 908 coming on board in Catbalogan.[11] However, an anonymous official of Sulpicio Lines told UPI that, since it was the Christmas season, tickets were usually purchased illegally aboard the ship at a cheaper rate, and those passengers were not listed on the manifest.[2] The same official added that holders of complimentary tickets and non-paying children younger than the age of four were likewise not listed on the manifest.[2][18]

Of the 21 bodies that had been recovered and identified as passengers on the ship five days after the accident, only one of the fatalities was listed on the official manifest. Of the 24 passengers who survived, only five were listed on the manifest.[19]

On December 28, 1987, Representative Raul Daza of Northern Samar claimed that at least 2,000 passengers aboard Doña Paz were not on the ship's manifest.[20] He based that number on a list of names furnished by relatives and friends of missing people believed aboard the ferry, the names having been compiled by radio and television stations in Tacloban.[20] The names of these 2,000+ missing passengers were published in pages 29 to 31 of the December 29, 1987, edition of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. At least 79 public school teachers perished in the collision.[21]

During February 1988 the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation stated, on the basis of interviews with relatives, that there were at least 3,099 passengers and 59 crew on board, giving 3,134 on-board fatalities.[22] In January 1999 a presidential task force report estimated, on the basis of court records and more than 4,100 settlement claims, that there were 4,341 passengers.[23] Subtracting the 25 surviving passengers, and adding 58 crew gives 4,374 on-board fatalities. Adding the 11 dead from the Vector crew, the total becomes 4,385.[3]

President Corazon Aquino described the accident as "a national tragedy of harrowing proportions...[the Filipino people's] sadness is all the more painful because the tragedy struck with the approach of Christmas".[24] Pope John Paul II, Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita and Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom conveyed their official messages of condolence.[25] Given the estimated death toll, Time magazine and others have termed the sinking of Doña Paz "the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster of the 20th century".[3][26]

Sulpicio Lines announced three days after the accident that Doña Paz was insured for ₱25,000,000 (about US$631,000 in 2019 dollars), and it was willing to indemnify the survivors the amount of ₱20,000 (US$542 during 2019) for each victim.[27] Days later, hundreds of the victims' kin staged a mass rally at Rizal Park, demanding that the ship owners likewise indemnify the families of those not listed on the manifest, as well as to give a full accounting of the missing.[18]

Nonetheless, the Board of Marine Inquiry eventually exculpated Sulpicio Lines of fault in the accident.[12] Subsequent inquiries revealed that Vector was operating without a license, lookout or properly qualified master.[9] In 1999, the Supreme Court of the Philippines ruled that it was the owners of Vector who were liable to indemnify the victims of the collision.[4][12] Some of the claims pursued against either Sulpicio Lines or the owners of Vector, such as those filed by the Cañezal family (who lost two members) and the Macasas family (who lost three members) were adjudicated by the Supreme Court, which found that even the families of victims whose names did not appear on the official manifest were entitled to indemnity.[4][12] Caltex Philippines, which had chartered Vector, was likewise cleared of financial liability.[4]

MV Doña Paz

MT Vector

1. Quartermaster Franklin/Francisco Bornillo, 26[30][31]
2. Second Mate Reynaldo Tarife, 41[30]

• Moises Velasco, 1st Lieutenant of the 14th Infantry Battalion[32]
• Rodolfo Bribon, 1st Lieutenant of the 34th Infantry Battalion[32]
• Edwin Honrado, 2nd Lieutenant of the 14th Infantry Battalion[32]