A class action suit as a legal action is often linked with the sinking of the M/V Don Juan more than four decades ago—an unfortunate incident that led to the annual MassKara Festival of Bacolod every October.
The vessel departed Manila for Bacolod at 1:00 p.m. on April 22, 1980, carrying mostly vacationers and students returning home after graduation or a break from major universities in Manila, such as the University of the Philippines. Many of the passengers belonged to wealthy and prominent Negrense families.
At about 10:30 p.m., the M/V Don Juan collided with the oil tanker M/T Vector off the Tablas Strait in Mindoro. The collision resulted in an inferno at sea, with an estimated 4,386 casualties, and it was described as “Asia’s Titanic” and the “world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.” There were only 26 survivors.
In Negros Navigation Co., Inc. vs. Miranda and De la Victoria (G.R. No. 110398, November 7, 1997), the Supreme Court found Negros Navigation negligent for allowing the ship captain and other crew members to play mahjong while onboard. The captain and crew failed to take steps to prevent the collision, delay the sinking of the ship, or properly supervise the abandoning of the vessel.
The Court also ruled that Negros Navigation failed to maintain the seaworthiness of the M/V Don Juan, leading to its sinking within 10 to 15 minutes after the collision with the oil tanker. Moreover, the Court found the vessel was overloaded. Although the ship’s capacity was 864 persons (810 passengers), there were actually 1,004 people on board when it sank—140 more than the maximum safe limit.
The Doña Paz tragedy is considered a landmark case that addressed the issue of “class action suits” as outlined in Section 12, Rule 3 of the Rules of Court.
A class action suit allows multiple parties with similar grievances against a common defendant to pool their resources and litigate the matter collectively. This legal mechanism enhances judicial efficiency and ensures a consistent verdict for issues of common interest.
The Supreme Court explained the “class suit” in Re: Request of the Heirs of the Passengers of the Doña Paz to Set Aside the Order Dated January 4, 1988 of Judge B. D. Chingcuangco (A.M. No. 88-1-646-0, March 3, 1988):
The elements of a class suit are: (a) the subject matter in controversy is of common or general interest to many persons, and (b) those persons are so numerous as to make it impracticable to bring them all before the court.
In a class suit, there is only one right or cause of action that pertains or belongs in common to many persons, not separately or severally to distinct individuals.
The Court emphasized that the object of the suit is to obtain relief for or against numerous persons as a group or as an integral entity, rather than as separate, distinct individuals whose rights or liabilities are independent of one another.
It added that the parties bringing the class suit must be sufficiently numerous or representative of the class to protect the interests of all concerned adequately.
A judgment in a class suit, whether favorable or unfavorable, is binding under res judicata principles upon all the members of the class, whether or not they were present in court. It is the non-divisible nature of the right sued on that determines both the membership of the class and the res judicata effect of the final determination of the right.
However, the Court noted that the proceedings involved more of the Rule on Permissive Joinder of Parties, as found in Section 6 of Rule 3, than a class suit.
This rule states that if there are many persons who have distinct, separate rights against the same party or group of parties, but those rights arise from the same transaction or series of transactions and there are common questions of fact or law, they may join as plaintiffs in one action against the same defendant.
“Everyone—and the members of the Court are no exception—deplores the tragedy that claimed so many unsuspecting victims in what has been described, to repeat, as ‘the worst single disaster’ in maritime history. Everyone condoles and sympathizes with those whom the victims, both known and unknown, left behind, many of whom were denied even the small consolation of being able to bury their dead. Everyone undoubtedly hopes and wishes that these survivors may quickly obtain adequate recompense for the untimely loss of their loved ones.”
The Court ruled that the case was not proper for a class suit and that the action may not be maintained by a representative few on behalf of all the others: “But sympathy and commiseration, however well-deserved, are not considerations that would justify bending or dispensing with the observance of the rules which prescribe how such vindication may be obtained in the courts of law.”
The tragedy gave birth to the MassKara Festival, which was first held during the city’s Charter Day celebration on Oct. 19, 1980, to lift the spirits of the locals and bring back the smiles on their faces.
Atty. Dennis R. Gorecho heads the seafarers’ division of the Sapalo Velez Bundang Bulilan law offices. For comments, email [email protected], or call 09175025808 or 09088665786.
