Three days after the FV Liberty 5 sunk off Tayamaan, Mamburao in Occidental Mindoro following a collision with foreign bulk carrier MV Vienna Wood, the 14 missing Filipinos were yet to be found.
This despite the intensified air and sea search and rescue operations launched by the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) using its multi-role response vessels and helicopters in the area of collision and nearby coastlines on Wednesday, July 1.
“No sightings of any survivors. The PCG small boats are also searching the coastlines of Occidental Mindoro,” said Commodore Armand Balilo, Coast Guard spokesman.
At present, the Coast Guard’s Islander plane and multi-role response vessels BRP Boracay and BRP Malapascua, and MCS 3009 are deployed in the area to sustain the search and rescue operations.
The Coast Guard, however, will decide Thursday, July 2, whether to continue or extend the rescue operations to locate the missing fishermen.
“It (search and rescue operation) has to be sustained for the next three days. After which we will evaluate if there’s a need for us to extend such search and rescue operations. By Thursday, we will assess if there’s a need to continue such operations,” said Vice Admiral George Ursabia, Jr., Coast Guard commandant.
Ursabia on Tuesday, June 30, expressed hopes that the fishermen were brought by the strong southwest monsoon to the coastlines of Mindoro, prompting them to alert areas for such possibility but in case it did not happen, the commandant said, they are expecting that the bodies will float by Wednesday.
However, as of Wednesday, the Coast Guard has yet to find signs of life or body.
Balilo, on the other hand, said that investigators have completed probing the crew of the MV Vienna Wood but did not divulge further information.
“They (investigators) will now gather information from the crew of other fishing vessels in the area at the time of the incident,” Balilo said.
During the incident, which happened at 10:20 p.m. Saturday, the MV Vienna Wood maneuvered away from FV Liberty 5 after the collision to maintain a safe distance. It, however, remained in the safe distance and failed to launch its own rescue operation for the fishermen aboard the capsized boat.
The captain of the foreign bulk carrier said they stayed in their position and did not conduct a rescue operation even though they were "well-equipped” with rescue boats because other small vessels were already in the area.
Now, the investigators need to get the accounts of the small vessels present during the incident “to be able to come up with credible accounts on what happened,” Ursabia said.
“They tried to respond but what made them limited in their efforts was the sea condition,” Ursabia said when the initial investigation was released Tuesday.
Poor visibility, heavy downpour, and rough seas were blamed over the collision and were initially identified as the reason behind the failure to rescue the fishermen.
“We want to finish the investigation in five to seven days,” Ursabia said.