A very Merry Christmas to all our readers!

While I wrote in my Freeman column about the major civilian maritime disaster that happened in Manila Bay when the SS Corregidor of Compania Maritima hit a US mine off the Island of Corregidor on Dec. 17, 1941 or 78 years ago, and broke into half killing so many passengers including my father’s only brother Benjamin (I never met him as I wasn’t born yet), however when I became a journalist, I would write about that incident for the sake of the families who  perished on that maritime disaster.

Last Friday, I didn’t realize that was the 32nd year of perhaps the infamous maritime disaster in recent history….  That is the sinking of the M/V Doña Paz of Sulpicio Lines, which was rammed by the tanker M/T Vector in Tablas Straits on Dec. 20, 1987 killing more than 4,386 passengers with only 24 known survivors. This incident was considered the worst maritime tragedy in Asia. Pundits have named it “Asia’s Titanic.”  Perhaps you may want to know why am I writing about this maritime tragedy 32 years ago?

Actually I have been following the undersea exploits of the survey Research Vessel (R/V) Petrel, the exploration ship owned and operated by the late Paul Allen’s Vulcan Inc. Being a World War II buff, I’ve been following on my Facebook page on what the R/V Petrel has been doing since they entered the Philippine waters and I salute the crew of the 250-foot Petrel that has discovered more than 30 sunken warships, with previous finds including the USS Indianapolis, the US Battleship that brought the first atomic bombs that were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But it was sunk by a Japanese submarine a week after they unloaded their nuclear cargo on July 30, 1945. It sank in 12 minutes and came to rest 5,500 meters down the Philippine Sea. Of the 1,196 sailors and Marines on board, only 316 survived in the greatest loss of life at sea from a single ship in US Navy history.

The R/V Petrel also found the Imperial Japanese Navy carrier Akagi off Midway. This was the lead Japanese ship that attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The Imperial Japanese Navy vessel Kaga was also found in the vicinity including the USS Lexington, the USS Juneau, the USS Helena, the USS Hornet and many more warships near the Leyte Gulf. They also found the Japanese battleship Hiei, which sank in the South Pacific during the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942.

Last Friday I learned that the R/V Petrel worked in partnership with the National Museum of the Philippines to examine the remains of the M/V Doña Paz and M/T Vector in Tablas Strait last April and this was published last Friday, the 32nd anniversary of this tragedy. During one press release by the R/V Petrel, Robert Kraft, director of subsea operations for Vulcan Inc., said “During our work searching for WWII wrecks in the Philippine Seas, people frequently asked us to look for the Doña Paz and told us stories of loved ones who had perished, we were honored to assist the Philippine government in this mission and hope the news brings closure to families and friends of those lost at sea.”

As their latest report said, “the heavily overcrowded Doña Paz sailed from Leyte Island to the Filipino capital Manila. A petroleum fire spread from the Vector to the ferry and people reportedly jumped into flaming waters.” The R/V Petrel report said that the wrecks of the two ships were found in the Sibuyan Sea, more than 2,200 meters apart in depths of more than 500 meters. Both wrecks are sitting upright on their keels and are largely intact on the seabed. The release of the images, while captured last spring, are timed to the 32nd anniversary of the disaster on Friday. We are writing on this historic tragedy to remember those who perished in this worst maritime tragedy of the Philippines and hope that such incidents would never, ever happen again in Philippine waters.

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Today is Christmas Eve and since I do not come out tomorrow, Christmas Day, allow me to share my Christmas thoughts with my readers. At this point, allow me to exhort our friends to watch the Netflix show on the “Two Popes” starring Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict XVI and Jonathan Pryce as Jorge Bergoglio who eventually became Pope Francis. The Two Popes is a 2019 biographical drama film directed by Fernando Meirelles and written by Anthony McCarten who finally came up with it for Netflix only production. I would have cut off my Netflix subscription because of their movie depicting our Lord Jesus Christ as gay. That was totally stupid for Netflix to release. I hope they remove it.

At this point, allow me to greet all my faithful readers a very Merry Christsmas and a Happy New Year...to all. Perhaps the best Christmas gift to the nation is the reality that our President Rodrigo Duterte has increased his popularity rating to 87 percent+, a rating that no other President in this country and the rest of the world has ever got! Merry Christmas to all!

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