50 ferry fire victims identified

MANILA, Philippines — The remains of 50 people who died in the fire that struck M/V June Aster off Coron, Palawan on Sept. 9 have been identified, an official of the Philippine National Police reported yesterday.

PNP forensic group director Brig. Gen. Pierre Paul Carpio said the bodies were all subjected to DNA testing.

“We have identified and crossmatched 50 of those cadavers. We have remaining 21 cadavers for crossmatching,” Carpio said in a briefing at Camp Crame yesterday.

Carpio said the PNP has submitted its disaster victim identification report to the Coron town government, which in turn will present the findings to the victims’ relatives.

After almost a month since the incident, Carpio explained that the identification process takes time as the laboratory has to be decontaminated and must be sterile at all times.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) continues with its search for the remaining eight missing people – five passengers and three crewmembers.

“The PCG is giving its best effort to locate the missing. We have already combed through the isolated islands where they could have possibly drifted, based on our search and rescue optimization planning system,” PCG spokesperson Commodore Noemie Cayabyab said.

Cayabyab said the PCG remains hopeful that those still missing are alive.