Coast Guard chief Vice Adm. Arturo Gosingan said salvage teams had nearly finished inspecting the bowels of the ship, which was consumed by flames after an explosion early Friday off Corregidor island.
"We already made a half-sweep and 70 percent of the ship has been searched," Gosingan said. "There are no signs of life, but there are also no dead bodies. So far we only found debris."
He said the Coast Guard now hoped the missing passengers had been rescued by fishing vessels that responded to the ferry’s distress call but had not bothered to report back to the authorities.
Gosingan said many of the cabins had collapsed and investigators had yet to sift through a heap of debris lying on the ship’s submerged starboard (right side).
He said a faint stench of death could be detected although it could not be certain whether there were bodies underneath.
Gosingan said rescue operations would continue throughout the week or until the search of the ship’s shell has been completed.
Divers, medical teams and firefighters were still looking for the 134 missing inside the wreckage, which was moored in the shallow waters off the coast of Mariveles in Bataan.
Gosingan said that 70 percent of the half-sunken ferry has been inspected by divers and arson investigators. Search teams resumed work on the 10,192-ton steel-hulled ferry Tuesday after stopping because of dark.
Divers pulled from the vessel several plastic bags of material that was submitted for DNA testing, he said.
There was earlier speculation that it could include human remains, but Gosingan doubted this.
"I myself touched it and smelled it and it looks more like leather, or even synthetic material," he said.
Gosingan said search teams were lifting the baggage and ship cargo in hopes of finding bodies. He theorized that victims could have been trapped or crushed by falling debris, baggage and cargo when the ship turned on its side.
He said operations were hampered by poor visibility and the danger of jagged metal in the interior passageways, as well as embers and hot gases still fuming in the lower deck.
Uncertainty also continued over the cause of the blast, as authorities scorned claims by Abu Sayyaf bandits that they were responsible and could identify the bomber.
Authorities yesterday lowered the number of people missing to 134 after contacting three more survivors, while the Abu Sayyaf identified a certain Arnulfo Alvarado as "Passenger 51" who planted a bomb on the ship.
The government has dismissed the claim of responsibility as a mere propaganda, but the violent al-Qaeda-linked group stuck to its statement.
The ferry operator, WG&A, said there was no such name in the manifest.
The military and President Arroyo also doubted the claim, saying there was no evidence of a bomb and that none of the survivors appeared to have shrapnel wounds.
"The truth behind this incident in emerging: no terrorists, no missing bodies," Mrs. Arroyo said.
"But the search and retrieval operations will not be called off until we are sure that there are no more bodies inside the ill-fated passenger ship. And we will get to the root cause of this incident and take steps to prevent another one from happening again," she said.
Coast Guard officials said a check with the manifest showed that passenger 51 was a woman and that the name Alvarado was not on the list.
"By all indications as per our investigation, there is no evidence that the fire was caused by a bomb," Gosingan said.
Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. said police forensic investigators joining the probe on the SuperFerry 14 incident said they have not found any evidence of bomb explosion occurring at the ship.
"There was only combustion, and so we can see here the objective of again exploiting that incident to their (Abu Sayyaf) own end which is to propagate terrorism," Ebdane said.
While Ebdane described the Abu Sayyaf as now "disorganized" as a result of the intensified manhunt campaign against them, he admitted that a few of the bandits have been spotted in some parts of the country, but not in Metro Manila.
"We have a good monitoring in Metro Manila and so far, there is no indication that they are in Metro Manila," Ebdane said.
"For the first time since the Sipadan (hostage incident), the Abu Sayyaf have been on the run," Mrs. Arroyo said, referring to the international notoriety of the bandit group that kidnapped several foreign tourists from the Malaysian island of Sipadan in 2001.
Mrs. Arroyo mentioned several Abu Sayyaf leaders who have been killed or captured in recent government offensives.
"These were just down payments," she said. "We need to (pay) the next installments. What is needed more is a decisive leadership to wipe out the forces that seek to divide us."
Ebdane, for his part, said there is a possibility that the bandit group is consolidating its remaining forces after several of its members were killed or captured by government forces.
"If your look at the history of the Abu Sayyaf, their numbers are elastic. When there are incidents before where people take advantage of the money that transferred from one hand to another, there seems to be an increase in their strength," he said.
Ebdane said no group within the Abu Sayyaf is potent enough to launch a terror attack since their leader, Khaddafi Janjalani, is constantly on the run.
But one lawmaker, re-electionist Sen. John Osmeña, called on the authorities and ship owners to map out tighter security measures at seaports and airports to prevent such an incident from occurring.
He said it might be necessary to install x-ray machines at domestic piers throughout the country to ensure no bomb or other incendiary devices are loaded on passenger ships.
Even as Osmeña doubted the Abu Sayyaf claim, he said current security procedures at the piers are lax.
"Anyone who passed through the security inspection at the piers before boarding a passenger ship will agree with me that it is easy to bring in a bomb," he said.
Only hand carried items like small bags are scrutinized while luggage, boxes and other cargoes are not opened up for inspection.
Osmeña said the bomb-sniffing dogs found only at major seaports are not enough to screen all passengers and their belongings.
The 10,192-ton vessel was en route to Bacolod City with around 900 people on board when it caught fire. More than 700 people were rescued and one passenger was confirmed killed.
Witnesses said a powerful explosion triggered the inferno. Most of the 899 passengers and crew escaped and only one body has been found. — AFP, Marichu Villanueva