“It’s a terrible thing wishing that it can be someone else’s tragedy.” –John Dyer

The MV Don Juan tragedy happened 37 years ago but it was a maritime disaster that Ilonggos in Negros and Iloilo cannot forget.
On April 22, 1980, the M/S Don Juan, a commercial vessel owned by Negros Navigation (NN), was traveling from Manila to Bacolod City when it was rammed by the M/T Tacloban City, an oil tanker, and sank.

The Day the City of Smiles Wept
Boy Mucovado vividly recalled the incident six years ago with a story marking the anniversary of the tragedy, entitled “The Day the City of Smiles Wept:”
“Around 1 pm of April 22, 1980, a jampacked M/S Don Juan of Negros Navigation (NN) carrying at least 1,000 passengers, left Pier 2 at the Manila North Harbor. It was bound for Bacolod City. Within her were vacationers, students coming home after graduation or a break in big universities in Manila, families of wealthy and illustrious Negrenses, who accompanied newly bought cars in its cargo and businessmen with bulk of their goods.
The Don Juan was famous for its cruising speed, cutting traveling time to 18-19 hours for a Manila-Bacolod trip which was usually 22-24 hours on other vessels at that time. It featured the elegant “Admiral Class” Cabins. A signature of first class travel for NN’s fleet. It was the first of its kind to have watertight cabin and compartment doors.
At 10:30 pm the vessel was traveling beneath a full-moon over the calm Tablas Strait between Tablas and Maestre de Campo Island with most of the passengers asleep. The rest were awake having a great time with the band at the ferry’s disco. But all of a sudden it was rammed hard on its portside by oil tanker M/T Tacloban City of the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC). It left a large gaping hole from its lower deck bunks to the Admiral Class Cabin decks. The impact jammed most of the cabin doors sealing the fate of their occupants. Fortunate ones were on the Economy Class upper decks and disco-goers. It didn’t take long and Don Juan took in seawater, listed hard to the portside then dipped forward. Screaming, terrified and wailing passengers even without life-jackets jumped to the sea.
The crew frantically handed out life-jackets and tried to put them into lifeboats. Collapsible lifeboats were released for those already at sea. But time was too short. In 15-20 minutes Don Juan was swallowed by the sea, with it were dozens still trapped in cabins and bunks, crew members who held to their posts and those already in lifeboats but were never released on time.
Hundreds of survivors thrashed and called for help for in the shark-infested waters. The crew of the tanker Tacloban plucked out as many survivors as they could and those killed instantly by the impact. After two hours, another PNOC tanker, M/T Laoag City, arrived after Don Juan’s distress call and took the remaining survivors and more corpses. Smaller ships and fishing vessels within its vicinity also came and helped out. Most of the survivors were brought to the port of Batangas in the morning, April 23, 1980.
Bacolod City and the rest of Negros Occidental was shocked. It came very untimely when the province was suffering from the fall of worldwide sugar prices that heralded the collapse of the monocrop sugar industry of the province.”

Survivors
JoevalBrodit was returning from dancing competition on a famous noontime television shows and was in the disco when the collision occurred.
Jostled and able to acquire a life jacket, but it was grabbed off of him by another passenger.
While at sea, he huddled with a dozen more survivors on a capsized lifeboat, but became an instant hero when he swam back out to sea to grab more survivors – one of them was Sharon Tumaliuan of Iloilo City, which landed him on the cover of the Manila Bulletin.
Dr. Linda Sanson, an obstetrician-gynecologist (OB/GYN) traveling with her three toddlers and two babysitters instantly escaped their cabin and grabbed tow life jackets, which they all shared until they were rescued.
Ethel Ferrer, a pregnant University of St. La Salle (USLS) elementary school teacher, was separated from her eldest son, who she was traveling with, but was reunited with him after an hour.
Jocelyn Panisa and her twin brothers, Jesus and Reynaldo, were traveling home from a wedding with their uncle. They boarded as “chance passengers” and were in economy class on the upper deck. The siblings survived by clinging onto the sides of a lifeboat, but their uncle was on a lifeboat that never left the ship.

The dead
• The mother of Atty. RenecitoNovero, who was on her way home after attending his graduation from the University of the Philippines College of Law.
• The Alunanfamily, ironically, the pride of Bacolod City in swimming, remained missing and were believed to be trapped in one of the ship’s cabins.
• The family of then-Bacolod City Mayor Rodrigo ‘Digoy’ Montalvo, his wife Nora, daughters Mylene and Yvette, and mother-in-law AniciaKilayko were never found and were believed to have died in their cabins. The mayor was in such sorrow, he traveled throughout northern Negros, Capiz, and went as far as Romblon and Oriental Mindoro to search for his family.

Rescue
The late historian Rex Salvilla recalled the MV Tacloban City rescued 320 passengers and recovered the bodies of 12 casualties. While its sister tanker, the MV Laoag City, picke dup 506 survivors and 10 of the dead. Both ships left around 1:00 a.m. and arrived in Batangas City by daylight.
The MV Don Julio, sister ship of the MV Don Juan, joined the rescue effort and brought back the remains of 80 passengers to Manila, while transferring 62 survivors and 74 of the dead to another ship, the MV Doña Florentina, heading towards Iloilo City.
“The horror of the tragedy is in seeing many people die before one’s eyes. A 21-year old student saw ‘many persons die before my eyes.’ But most horrible is to see a loved one die. A man hugging his 8-year old daughter lost his grip on her. Before his eyes, she slipped and disappeared into the dark sea. A teenager witnessed the drowning of her teenage older sister. A man saw his father swallowed by the sea after their raft capsized,”Salvilla remembered./WDJ