{"id":14645,"date":"2026-01-27T18:00:32","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T18:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/philippines-grounds-ferry-operators-fleet-after-deadly-sinking\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T18:00:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T18:00:32","slug":"philippines-grounds-ferry-operators-fleet-after-deadly-sinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/philippines-grounds-ferry-operators-fleet-after-deadly-sinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Philippines grounds ferry operator’s fleet after deadly sinking"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Philippines said it had grounded the passenger fleet of a local shipping line on Tuesday pending an investigation, as rescuers scoured the ocean for survivors of a ferry sinking that killed at least 18 people.<\/p>\n

The MV Trisha Kerstin 3 was carrying 344 passengers and crew when it went down off southwestern Mindanao in the early hours of Monday. Most people were rescued in the immediate aftermath.<\/p>\n

The 10 passengers still unaccounted for include the ferry’s captain, eight crew members and a safety marshal, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Ronnie Gavan said at a press briefing on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The triple-decker vessel sank on nearly the same route where 31 people died in 2023 after a fire aboard the Lady Mary Joy 3 ferry. Both ships were owned by locally based Aleson Shipping Lines.<\/p>\n

Transportation secretary Giovanni Lopez said on Tuesday that the company’s passenger fleet would be kept at port pending an investigation.<\/p>\n

“As of now, the entire passenger fleet of Aleson Shipping Company (is) grounded,” he said, adding that the country’s maritime regulator and coast guard would conduct a safety audit over the next 10 days.<\/p>\n

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“The president has ordered a full-blown investigation, so all the angles will be looked at to determine what really happened,” he said.<\/p>\n

“If it turns out the shipowners were deficient, they will expect the full force of the law,” Lopez told reporters.<\/p>\n

He added that there had been 32 recorded safety “incidents” at sea involving the company but offered no specifics.<\/p>\n

The coast guard’s Gavan said that ongoing search-and-rescue efforts remained the immediate priority.<\/p>\n

“The most important thing at this point is lives,” he said, adding that 16 technical divers and a remotely operated vehicle were being flown in from Manila to assist in the coming investigation.<\/p>\n

A coast guard press aide told AFP that the ship was believed to be sitting at a depth of about 76 meters.<\/p>\n

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An Aleson Shipping Lines employee who answered the phone said the company would release a statement addressing the situation within the day.<\/p>\n

On Monday, a survivor of the sinking told AFP that “no one from the crew alerted us”, describing the panic that gripped passengers as the ship began tilting in the water.<\/p>\n

Aquino Sajili said passengers had raced to one side of the ship in a desperate attempt to rebalance it before he heard a “loud snap” that preceded the ship’s rapid sinking.<\/p>\n

Those who survived then spent hours bobbing in life jackets or clinging to other floatation devices while awaiting rescue, the 53-year-old lawyer said.<\/p>\n

“I think we can gather enough evidence to prove that the crew members of the ship were really negligent,” Sajili said, adding he believed a lawsuit was likely.<\/p>\n

The Philippines 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.<\/p>\n

A 2015 ferry capsizing off the western coast of Leyte Island resulted in more than 60 deaths.<\/p>\n

In 1987, the Dona Paz ferry collided with an oil tanker in a pre-Christmas accident that claimed more than 4,000 lives. It was the world’s worst peacetime disaster at sea.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t© 2026 AFP<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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Philippines grounds ferry operator’s fleet after deadly sinking<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Philippines said it had grounded the passenger fleet of a local shipping line on Tuesday pending an investigation, as rescuers scoured the ocean for survivors of a ferry sinking that killed at least 18 people. The MV Trisha Kerstin 3 was carrying 344 passengers and crew when it went down off southwestern Mindanao in…<\/p>\n

Read More “Philippines grounds ferry operator’s fleet after deadly sinking”<\/span> »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14646,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}