@DJB, I don’t think knowing the exact numbers is the prerequisite for castigating this company. 800 lives in this tragedy should be enough to castigate anyone. Call it negligence, but never an Act of God.

It was an act of wrong judgment, pure and simple.

Whether you wish to use the 22 ships as an excuse for Sulpicio and the theory of an Act of God, it’s your choice. But as I have said, this whole affair is an indictment on the whole industry, Sulpicio Lines included, not God.

Once the insurance appraiser takes into account the data in the Lloyd’s database (which you blogged about) on Sulpicio’s safety record, the result would either Sulpicio’s premiums would make travelling with the carrier uncompetitive, or would make the carrier uninsurable thereby closing down its passenger operations.

It’s a way of introducing the kind of regulation that would make market forces work for the interest of the public.

closing down sulpicio as an object lesson, towards tightening controls and increasing maritime safety is the beginning of risk mitigation (even almost outright elimination, if done as close to perfect as can be).

i prefer risk mitigation and elimination over contingency. provide contingencies, yes, but let’s not let the risks remain in place as they are.

(what can i say — i’m more engineering than political in such analyses.)

However, from your blog entry, i realized that there is a need for mandatory insurance coverage for passengers (covering protection and indemnity, not just accident insurance) to help ensurethe safety of the carrier. That should be the priority (even for non-Sulpicio carriers).

or, to put it even more bluntly, it seems that mong’s question supposes a higher premium on the plight of 7000 skilled workers (all of whom can be absorbed by local and foreign shipping firms and thus their lives will go on), than the lives of those who have died and those yet to die, none of whom can have their lives given back to them.

now, if that’s good enough for shipping firms, let’s do the same for bus lines. let’s relax the laws, payagan natin ang mga bus na nakaaksidente at nakasagasa na atrasan ang biktima at bayaran na lang ang naiwang pamilya, imbes na parusahan ang mga kumpanyang may patakaran (nakasulat man o hindi) na ganito. the dead are dead — we have to think of the living, don’t we?

a rather interesting point of view on quality service, not to mention the price of doing business.

hell, let’s just set a price of the life of each filipino. bank employee dead after an early morning holdup, call center agent dead after a stick-up, child sideswiped in front of her school, student dead after a fraternity rite gone wrong, activist murdered by government agents… who cares? pay thirty silver pieces, and his death is recompensed, whatever the cause of death, for whatever reason the slaying, and with the culprit or his representatives handing over the bag not as an admission of guilt.

a rather interesting point of view on accountability and justice.

(nice one, mong — you have made me regret supporting your party-list organization last elections.)