The Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) in the region has called on roll-on, roll off ships plying the Davao City-Samal Island route to implement tighter safety measures to avoid overloading and endangering their passengers.
Felisa Orongan, head of MARINA Region XI sounded the alarm on Wednesday, adding that a lot of passengers do not follow the safety measures when riding the RORO from the Sasa whart to Samal and vice-versa despite existing policies.
“We really have a policy that in riding the ferry, passengers are required to turn off their car engines and step out of their vehicle but we have noticed that passengers do not follow this,” she said. “They insist that they don’t need to step out of their cars because the travel time from the wharf to Samal Island only takes about ten minutes,”
She added: “May ibang tamad na pumunta sa taas, doon sa passenger area, where our life-saving apparatus are located. This should not be practiced because we do not know what is going to happen during that ten-minute ride.”
According to Orongan, the danger of the passengers do not go leaving their vehicles is the tendency for their names not to be included in the official passenger list.
“This results most times to overloading which endangers the safety of all passengers in the process,” she said.
She also called calls for the travellers refrain from putting aliases as their names on the passenger list because this manifesto is important.
She also said that the barge will be prioritizing the passengers with vehicles. Walk-in passengers or those riding the barge without vehicles were encouraged to ride the boats instead to avoid overloading.
“We call for the cooperation of the passengers. Let us not be complacent porke’t walang nangyayari. Let help us implement these rules,” Orongan stresses especially with the nearing of the Holy Week celebration in April where an influx of passengers will be expected.
