The Philippine Ports Authority said on Thursday that it has already coordinated with the Bureau of Customs to find the consignee of the container that contains two decomposing dead bodies that were delivered and discovered in Thailand last 2 October 2023.

PPA general manager Atty. Jay Daniel Santiago told the DAILY TRIBUNE that there is an ongoing coordination with the BOC, while a thorough investigation is underway.

"As soon as we received info on the discovery of the corpses, we immediately initiated our own investigation and did a traceback on the movement of the container," he said.

Santiago added that they had a hard time tracing back the origin of the cargo container, said to be owned by Evergreen Marine Corporation, because of the lack of technology to do so.

"It would have been easier for us if there was immediately available digital data on the identity of the container but instead, we had to do a manual traceback," he said.

The PPA has been pushing for the roll-out of the Trusted Operator Program-Container Registry and Monitoring System or TOP-CRMS, a digitized system that will register and monitor the movement of containers that enter and exit the ports that are strongly opposed by several shipping lines and the Alliance of Concerned Truck Owners and Organizations.

Under the TOP-CRMS, if passed, the containers going in and out of the country will have a proper electronic log and cargoes will have a container insurance policy to ensure that they arrive safely to their destination.

There are about a dozen stakeholders and business groups who objected to the Philippines having TOP-CRMS in the public consultation held in recent months.

Confirms Manila origin

Meanwhile, PPA-NCR South Harbor acting port manager Catherine Esto confirmed that the cargo indeed originated at the Port of Manila.

"The container was declared empty by its owners. The BOC has the responsibility for the release of cargo from the port to its destination. We are also conducting our own investigation on why the container was declared empty," she said in a radio interview, also on Thursday.

Port authorities in Thailand said the container arrived at Laem Chabang Port, but when the warehouse personnel opened the said container to clean it, they discovered the decomposing bodies of two unidentified Filipinos.

The Thai Police, on the other hand, assumed that the two bodies might have been dead for two weeks with no signs of torture.