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Twenty-five people are missing after a small inter-island ferry sank in waters south of the Philippine capital, the coast guard said Sunday, just days after a similar disaster claimed up to 27 lives.
The MV Baleno-9, carrying 88 passengers and crew, began listing and went down just before midnight near Batangas City, the coast guard report said.
Ships in the area rescued 63 of the passengers of the stricken ferry but 25 are still unaccounted for, the coast guard said.
Passengers told the coast guard that the MV Baleno-9, a roll-on ferry, began taking on water from the bow ramp.
This "severely affected the stability of the vessel causing her to badly list and eventually sink," the coast guard report said.
Coast guard vessels and search aircraft have been dispatched to the area in the search for more survivors.
"Hopefully, their (search) flights will not be fruitless and they may find a few more of the missing," said coast guard spokesman Commander Armand Balilo.
He noted that the ferry had sufficient life vests and life rafts and that this may have allowed more of those on board to escape alive.
"We always hope that there will be survivors," he told a local radio station.
Sunday's sinking comes barely three days after a passenger boat was hit by a steel fishing vessel and sank near Manila on Thursday, leaving four dead and 23 missing.
The Philippines experiences frequent shipping accidents, usually involving poorly-maintained, overloaded ferries, which are the backbone of travel between the archipelago's islands.
The world's deadliest peacetime maritime disaster occurred south of Manila in 1987 when a ferry laden with Christmas holidaymakers collided with a small oil tanker, killing more than 4,000 people.
