Kaya bang tawaran ang buhay?

6:45 in the evening. September 9.

The MV June Aster was almost home. It left Manila's Baseco port the night before, bound for Coron. More than 130 people on board. Some going home. Some on vacation. Some going to work.

Then, an explosion.

Survivors said the lights died first. Then the smoke. Then the fire, racing up from the cargo hold. "Everything happened in seconds," an editorial wrote. Many never had time to put on a life vest.

Seventy-seven dead. Forty-three survivors. Eight still missing.

But one number keeps me up at night. Seventy-one.

That is how many of the dead still have no names, according to a report. Many of them lie together in a mass grave at the San Nicolas Public Cemetery in Coron. Temporary, the town says. Waiting for DNA. At first, there was only one forensic dentist to pull DNA from their teeth. Volunteer dentists had to step in.

Isipin mo ang isang nanay sa Tondo. Alam niyang sumakay ang anak niya. Alam niyang wala na ito. Pero hindi pa niya maiuwi. Hindi pa niya masabing, "Iyan ang anak ko."

The Faces Behind the Numbers

This week, NET25 was in Coron and Culion for the coverage of the Care for Humanity mission. I met some of the survivors. I will not forget them.

An eight-year-old girl. She was on the ship with her mother and her five-year-old brother. When the fire came, her mother threw her away from the flames. Para mabuhay siya.

She lived. Her mother and her brother did not.

Walong taon. She will grow up knowing that her mother's last act was to save her.

Then there is Tatay Benjamin.

He boarded the June Aster with a coffin. Inside was his wife. She had died in a hospital in Manila. He was bringing her home to Coron to be buried.

The ship burned. The coffin burned.

Patay na nga, nasunog pa.

His daughter was with him. Four months pregnant. She is still missing.

We visited his son-in-law in the hospital. Covered in wounds. He does not know his wife is missing. He thinks she is being treated in another hospital.

Paano mo sasabihin sa isang lalaking puno ng sugat na nawawala ang asawa niya at ang anak nilang hindi pa naisisilang? Sino ang magsasabi sa kanya?

Fifty Thousand Pesos

Then came the paper.

In a NET25 News report, Tatay Benjamin showed a document. A quitclaim. He says Atienza Interisland Ferries, the ship's owner, pressed the families to sign it. The terms: P50,000. In exchange, the company is cleared of everything.

Fifty thousand pesos.

For a wife who burned inside her own coffin, whose remains are still not back with him. For a pregnant daughter still missing. For a grandchild never born.

"Binigay sa akin, binasa namin," he said. "Sabi ko, hindi ako pipirma."

He did not sign.

How does he carry all this? "Ang totoo lang, sir, 'yung sakit na 'yan, inalis ko na lang. Kasi kung dibdibin ko 'yan, masisiraan ako ng ulo."

I don't know if a paper like that would hold up in court. But I know what some Filipinos call it. Tawad.

Parang tinatawaran ang buhay.

He is not alone. On September 20, survivors and families went to a senator. They said the operator abandoned them. Sent them home. Told them to just wait for the remains.

Parang naging parcel ang labi ng pamilya ng mga biktima.

Six Names, Seventy-One Bodies

The captain, Roel Sarmiento, went missing for five days after the fire, a paper reported. The Coast Guard has now charged him with falsification. Six people on his manifest never boarded.

Six names with no bodies. Seventy-one bodies with no names.

This is the second major sea tragedy in seven months. Before the June Aster, the MV Trisha Kerstin 3. More than sixty-six dead.

Sa bagyo, puwede nating sisihin ang panahon. A burning ship with a false manifest? Tao ang may sala diyan.

To be fair, help did come. Governor Amy Roa Alvarez handed P10,000 to each Palaweño survivor. The Palace ordered aid for the families. A Cabinet Secretary came to talk to survivors. Coron's municipal hall hosts a help desk, and the town released hotlines.

Salamat. But money is not the only thing missing at a time like this. Presence is. A voice. Someone to stand beside the waiting mother and say, "Hindi ka namin iiwan."

Who Speaks for Coron?

Coron now keeps watch over the dead. Mario "Marjo" Reyes Jr. is mayor of Coron.

In the reports I read, his town released the hotlines. Good. But his face beside the families, his voice for them, I did not find in the news.

The Reyes name is not new to us in media.

January 24, 2011. Dr. Gerry Ortega was shot dead in Puerto Princesa. Broadcaster. Environmentalist. One of Palawan's loudest voices against mining.

In 2012, a court ordered the arrest of former Governor Joel Reyes as the alleged mastermind. The warrant also named his brother, then-Coron mayor Mario Reyes Jr., as an alleged accomplice. The brothers fled. They landed on an Interpol watch list. President Aquino himself ordered them hunted down. By 2015 they were in a Puerto Princesa jail, and still filed to run in Coron. Marjo made bail in 2016. He went back to the municipal hall.

His brother Joel has since been convicted of graft twice: in 2017 over a mining permit, and in July 2025 over the Malampaya fund. The Ortega murder trial continues.

Let us have the courts decide.

But I have spent decades reading people and rooms. My question is not legal. It is simple.

If you are the father of a town that buried seventy-one nameless dead, survivors will look for you.

Para sa Kanila

The dead deserve their names. The families deserve to bring them home. And a town deserves to hear from its leadership.

Para sa batang inihagis ng nanay niya palayo sa apoy.

Para kay Tatay Benjamin, na hindi ipinagbili ang kanyang pighati sa halagang limampung libo.

Para sa lalaking naghihintay pa rin sa asawang "nagpapagamot lang sa ibang ospital."

Sa dagat, nawalan sila ng buhay. Sa lupa, huwag na nating hayaang mawalan pa sila ng pangalan.