MV Princess of the Stars — A Ferry Sailed Into a Typhoon and Capsized; ~800 Died

On 21 June 2008, the Philippine passenger ferry MV Princess of the Stars capsized and rolled bottom-up off Sibuyan Island, in the waters near San Fernando, Romblon, after sailing from Manila toward Cebu directly into the path of Typhoon Fengshen — known locally by the Philippine name Frank. The death toll is most commonly stated as around 800 or more; roughly 814 people are recorded as dead or missing, against only a few dozen confirmed survivors. It was the worst Philippine ferry disaster of its era and one of the deadliest single maritime losses of the 2000s.

The Princess of the Stars was a large RO-RO ferry of about 23,800 gross tons operated by Sulpicio Lines — the same company associated with the 1987 Doña Paz collision, the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history. On 20 June 2008 she left Manila with well over 800 people aboard, bound for Cebu, even as Typhoon Frank tracked across the central Philippines. As the storm intensified around the vessel the following day, she lost power, was driven toward Sibuyan Island, and capsized in mountainous seas; most of those aboard were trapped inside as she turned turtle.

The Philippine Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI), the fact-finding body convened under the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA), investigated and issued a report dated 25 August 2008. Its central finding was directed at the ship’s master, Captain Florencio Marimon, who was lost with the vessel: that the immediate cause of the capsizing was the master’s failure to exercise extraordinary diligence and good seamanship — an error of judgment in continuing the voyage that brought the ship into harm’s way in the path of the typhoon, when prudent practice, and the conduct of other vessels that sheltered or cancelled, called for keeping clear. The BMI also recommended that MARINA consider suspending Sulpicio Lines’ Certificate of Public Convenience.

The disaster’s legal afterlife was long. The BMI was a fact-finding inquiry, not a criminal court, and the master himself had died; but the question of corporate responsibility ran through the Philippine courts for years, culminating in 2024 in a Court of Appeals ruling that the operator (by then renamed) was guilty of gross negligence and liable for substantial damages to victims’ families. This file states the toll as an estimate — around 800 or more — because, as with several mass-casualty ferry losses, the exact number of people aboard and lost was never established with certainty.