Paying For Lost Lives

How much does a human life cost?

Apparently Sulpicio Lines, with its record of sinking ships every five years on the average has a ready formula: P 200,00. That's the amount it says it will pay for each of the deaths in the sinking of its ferry M/V Princess of the Stars.

The announcement comes even as navy divers aren't really done yet scouring the waters off Romblon and Sibuyan Islands even though their own grim declaration was that they found only"many bloated and decomposing after boring a hole and entering the hull of the overturned wreck.

Only some 72 hours ago the 23,000-ton ferry, supposedly the newest in the Sulpicio fleet was teeming with the live of more than 800 passenger and crew en route to Cebu from Manila.

"We found no sign of life," the navy divers reported stoically.


As the grieving relatives of the missing stare blankly at the ship's manifested posted outside Sulpicio Cebu and Pier 12 offces in Manila we are sure the company's lawyers are busy retrieving their templates of quit-claim documents to stave off possible class action suits.

This is one time we make a call for both well-meaning prosecution lawyers and even 'a,mbulance chasers,

Throw the book at Sulpicio. Now.