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Act of God

6th July 2008, 12:04 am

LINK: ‘Note Verbale‘, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Section) - 6 July 2008 Issue

The phrase ‘act of God’ has usual reference to fortuitous events or force majeure, an unavoidable situation brought about by natural causes that disrupts the expected course of events.

From legal contemplation, no person shall be responsible for a fortuitous event which could not be foreseen, or which, though foreseen, was inevitable, so said the Philippine Civil Code. And for a person or entity to be exempt from any obligation or liability arising from act of God, there must be an entire exclusion of human agency from the cause of injury or loss, so said the Supreme Court in a long line of decided cases.

The rationale for the legal precept, as explained by the High Court in one case, is - “when the effect is found to be partly the result of a person’s participation—whether by active intervention, neglect, or failure to act - the whole occurrence is then humanized and removed from the rules applicable to acts of God.”

The fateful sinking of MV Princess of the Stars (allegedly Sulpicio Line’s main star among its fleet) at the height of typhoon Frank last June 21 caused this nation to grieve over the tragic death of several hundreds of passengers and crew, many of whose remains would surely just be consigned beneath the surface of the deep sea. The irony of it all is that no one would ever take legal or even simply some moral responsibility for the tragedy.

Did anyone ever say “I am sorry” for this unfortunate incident?

Sulpicio Line is strong in its position that it was the result of the weather bureau’s inaccurate forecasting of the direction of the typhoon. The weather bureau said that it was never remiss in its duty of providing advisories and warnings every quarter of the day while the typhoon was here. Some observers even note that the duty of the agency is just to predict, plain and simple, and forecasting the course of nature would never be perfect. The coast guard said that it adherred strictly to existing policies and regulations, particularly on the fact that sea vessels may sail during signal no. 1 at the discretion of the ship owner.

The arguments and counter-arguments of the stakeholders could be endless and circuitous until such time that the event is relegated to the inside pages of news stories. At the end of it all, the debate before the courts, the halls of Congress, and the various government initiated investigations would boil down to the sole issue whether the sinking was the result of God’s will or not. Because if it is, the families of the victims should probably claim their just compensation in heaven.

In the next few months, business, as in the past, would just be as usual until the next sea mishap.

Why cannot government require all shipping companies carrying passengers to procure a compulsory insurance of say a million pesos per passenger under a no-fault arrangement? Why cannot government allocate enough money to oversee and ensure that maritime regulations are strictly enforced considering that the more than 7,100 islands of the country are connected by water lanes and suspend or cancel the franchise of violators even before an accident struck? Surely, there are other why’s that would come to mind.

And perhaps the most reasonable explanation is that there is God to blame, after all. Or stated differently, maybe the government and the shipowners prefer to act like God.

In the case of the MV Princess of the Stars, the God in heaven cannot be blamed with certainty. But the gods of this country should be, all because there is human intervention, neglect, and failure to act.

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Tags: act of God, disaster, fortuitous event, maritime, sea mishap, sea peril, Sulpicio
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Act of God

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