ONE BRIGHT clear afternoon in 1986, the ship M.V. Doņa Josefina sailed from Isabel, Leyte carrying more than 200 passengers. Fifteen minutes later, the ship inexplicably started to list, and, to the horror of the passengers, sink.

The cause of the tragedy: the ship's cargo officer stored too much cargo in the ship's stern, or rear. The fatal imbalance led to the death of 150 people.

One December evening in 1987, a tanker filled with gasoline, oil and other combustible products floated perilously near a ship overloaded with 4,000 passengers. The lookout was missing from the tanker's deck. Minutes later, a collision occurred, and then explosions. The result was the Doņa Paz tragedy.

Culled from reports of the Philippine Coast Guard, these major maritime disasters underscore how dangerously ill-trained many of the country's seamen are in steering through major waterways.

The lack of competent seamen, the dilapidated state of many vessels, and the absence of minimal safety navigational aids are the main causes of tragedies in Philippine seas.

These problems continue year after year because of a regulatory environment that keeps passenger and cargo rates artificially low and gives little concern to safety standards.

As government moves to free rates and routes, the shipping industry expects safety standards to improve. But still, many are stressing the need for a vigilant regulator that will ensure minimum standards are met. Many fear that greedy ship owners may take the opportunity to charge more without improving service or safety.

The shipping industry is the most frequently used inter-island transportation of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos. Third class passage on a domestic liner costs less than a quarter of the cheapest airfare, making ships the only affordable means of transport for many.

More than 80 percent of maritime accidents are due to human error committed by ship officers, according to PCG Commodore Carlos Agustin.

Whether by misreading the ship's radar or failing to issue evacuation orders, ship's officers have caused accidents and the loss of lives.

Poorly trained seamen seep through the system because of a testing and registration system that is rife with corruption.

For years, the shipping industry expressed skepticism over the large percentage of students-80 to 90 percent-who passed marine engineer and seamen exams administered by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC).

Last year, their suspicions were indirectly confirmed. After the PRC computerized the testing process in July 1992, the number of examinees who passed plunged to barely 20 percent. "This is probably the best thing that happened to the shipping industry," according to Capt. Victor Basco, former Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) administrator and today, a shipping company official.

The low rate of passing reflects on the country's shipping schools. A Norwegian study noted many schools are substandard and lack crucial equipment. And if there are good schools, such as the Philippine Merchant Marine School, almost 100 percent of its graduates choose to work abroad.

The reason: Overseas ships pay their crew as much as 500 percent more than domestic vessels, according to Capt. Herby Escutin of the Maritime Safety Office.

Industry sources estimate that the highest captain's pay in the domestic liner industry is about P20,000 a month. For smaller liners, it can be as low as P6,000. The crew's salary is much lower. Given such pay scales, only few of the competent mariners are enticed to work locally.

But when companies pay their crews well, safety records invariably look up. Basco cites the record of a company that hauls oil products for Shell Philippines. It pays its captain an unheard of sum P35,000 monthly, and charges its clients accordingly. He says the company, so far, has had a sterling safety record.

Hiring competent crew and paying well is just one part of the story. Ship owners also need to enforce more bridge discipline among its crew officers to avoid accidents.

"They shouldn't be singing, entertaining women and playing the guitar while on bridge watch," says Agustin. "The shipping companies are very, very remiss in bridge discipline and organization."

The seaworthiness of vessels is another issue that affects safety at sea. The average age of vessels in this country is between 20 and 27 years old.

Local shipping companies are unable to buy new ships because of the costs involved. One of the most recent acquisitions of William Lines this year was a second hand, 20-year-old vessel from Japan. The cost: $13.8 million or about P300 million.

In itself, age does not necessarily mean that a ship is unsafe for as long as it complies with certain maintenance standards, says Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) administrator Paciencio Balbon, Jr. But few vessels in the country can afford to do so.

Filipino safety experts dream of requiring all vessels to be classed by reputable international and local classification societies to ensure seaworthiness, but government officials doubt whether this is feasible.

"We would if we could," says Balbon. "But if we did that, probably two-thirds of the ships would not sail."

Similarly, Agustin asks: "Can we really afford to impose strict safety rules? I don't think we can. If we do that, we will stop the operation of almost all ships. If we stop their operations, the industry will be filled with colorum (illegal) vessels."

Balbon says, "The real culprit here is economics." He explains that little investments have been made by ship owners in hiring the best crew and buying the best ships and maintaining them because passenger and cargo rates have remained so low.

"Even if you give them brand new ships, if they don't earn enough money to maintain them, these ships will deteriorate in five years," he says.

Unattractive returns also appears to be behind the perennial problem of overloading and poor service in the industry.

Overloading is a major safety issue mainly because ships are required to have a number of life rafts and life jackets that correspond exactly to the official passenger and crew capacity of the ship.

But a U.S. Agency for International Development study noted that shipping companies try to compensate for the low rates set by government by overloading with more passengers than allowed.

Third class passage from Manila to Cebu costs about P403 per person. This includes meals, which passengers say consists of scraps of tasteless viands and rice shoveled from large vats.

To make more money, some shipping companies have been known to hold back the sale of tickets during peak season, leading passengers to resort to scalpers, Marina officials say.

But passengers too have been known to be impervious to dangers of overloading. "It is very hard to regulate where there are many violators," says Agustin. In many cases, he says, the Coast Guard inspectors are insulted by angry passengers and threatened by police chiefs and town mayors when they try to prevent an overloaded ship from sailing.

Balbon says that government's moves to deregulate rates, seek cheap financing for shipping companies and help the industry obtain tax incentives from Congress can improve the safety outlook in the industry over the long term.

Many stress, however, the necessity of ensuring strict monitoring of safety standards in the face of deregulation.

Beyond the problem of economics, a culture of neglect and indifference to safety appears to be present in many areas of the industry. Shipping executives say some companies skimp on steel during vessel overhaul, replace parts only when they break down, and leave problems uncorrected if they can get away with it.

The USAID briefly considered the idea of recommending that third class passenger rates be raised during the peak season to allow companies to earn more. But the idea was shelved because the consultants thought the ship owners would merely use it as an excuse to increase fares without improving service or safety.