Philippine rescuers have recovered 76 bodies from the wreckage of the passenger ferry MV June Aster, five days after a fire tore through the vessel off the island province of Palawan, and 13 people remain unaccounted for as search teams widen their hunt along neighboring coastlines.
The Philippine Coast Guard said Sunday that of the 132 people confirmed aboard — 115 passengers and 17 crew — 43 survived, 76 are dead and 13 remain missing, a toll that has climbed steadily since the blaze broke out. The ferry, a roll-on, roll-off vessel built in 2002 and operated by Atienza Interisland Ferries, left Manila on the evening of September 8 bound for Coron, a gateway town to Palawan's limestone-island lagoons, and caught fire roughly 1.2 nautical miles offshore around 6:45 p.m. the next day — just hours before it was due to dock.
Survivors described a fire that spread with terrifying speed. One passenger, Richard Marcellano, told local reporters that "it happened so fast. It started with just smoke coming from below" before a loud blast sent flames racing through the ship. He spent two hours in the water before fishermen pulled him out, choosing, he said, to risk drowning rather than burning. Investigators say preliminary interviews point to the cargo hold — which held five motorcycles, a forklift, a pickup truck and an electric vehicle — as the likely origin point, though they have not ruled out other causes, including a deliberate act.
Di baleng sa tubig na lang po mamatay, huwag na sa apoy. — I'd rather die in the water than in the fire.
Richard Marcellano, MV June Aster survivor
A widening investigation, a missing captain
The Coast Guard's Maritime Safety and Maritime Crime investigation units have taken sworn statements from crew members and survivors, but a key witness remains unaccounted for: the ship's captain, Roel Sarmiento, who has not been found and could face charges over his conduct during the evacuation. Some survivors said they went into the water without life vests. Rescue crews have since expanded their search to fishing communities on Mindoro, on the chance that people swept off the ferry by currents washed ashore there rather than near Coron, where the bulk of the search has been concentrated.
Forensic teams are working out of tents set up at the port in Coron, using DNA analysis to identify badly burned remains and match them to relatives who have gathered at the dock since the weekend. Local officials say the identification process could take weeks given the condition of many of the bodies recovered.
A pattern of deadly sea disasters
Ferries remain the backbone of transport in the Philippine archipelago of more than 7,000 islands, and fires and sinkings recur with grim regularity. The country's deadliest peacetime maritime disaster, the 1987 sinking of the MS Doña Paz after a collision with an oil tanker, killed more than 4,000 people; a 2008 ferry disaster claimed more than 800 lives, and a fire aboard a Basilan-bound vessel killed dozens more in 2023. As recently as January, a ferry carrying more than 300 people sank en route to Sulu province, killing over 60. Safety advocates have long pushed for tighter limits on flammable cargo, including vehicles with lithium-ion batteries, and stricter enforcement of life-vest rules on inter-island routes — reforms that tend to be promised after each tragedy and only unevenly enforced afterward.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. directed government agencies to speed assistance to victims' families and ensure "rescue, relief, and accountability measures proceed without delay," his office said, as the search and identification work continued through the weekend.
Coast Guard officials said the search for the 13 still missing would continue as long as there is a realistic chance of finding them, while investigators work to determine what ignited the blaze and whether shipping rules on hazardous cargo were followed. Any findings are likely to feed into a familiar post-disaster debate over ferry safety in the Philippines — one that has resurfaced after nearly every major sinking or fire of the past decade, with little durable reform to show for it so far.
