Lawmakers in Mindanao in the southern Philippines have begun lobbying to prevent a local shipping company from continuing to operate within the same region where one of its vessels was lost in a deadly accident late last month.
Five members of the Transitional Parliament of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) have filed a resolution calling for a ban on the operations of Aleson Shipping Lines anywhere within the region in the wake of the January 26, 2026 sinking of the Ro-Pax ferry Trisha Kerstin 3 off Hadji Muhtamad municipality in Basilan province.
The incident's official death toll stood at 40 as of Sunday, February 1, while another two bodies were found by Philippine Coast Guard personnel and local civilian volunteers on Monday, February 2, during ongoing search and retrieval operations.
"All of those who perished in that incident are our constituents," said John Anthony Lim, a member of the BARMM majority in parliament and one of the co-authors of the resolution.
If approved, the resolution will task the BARMM's transportation ministry and port management authority with prohibiting all vessels owned by Aleson from operating within the autonomous region's territorial waters, which encompass five provinces including Basilan.
Trisha Kerstin 3 was en route to Jolo municipality in Sulu province when it suffered water ingress shortly after 00:00 local time on January 26.
The vessel sank a little over an hour later while approximately 2.75 nautical miles off Baluk-Baluk Island in Hadji Muhtamad.
The Trisha Kerstin 3 tragedy is also the deadliest maritime incident to occur in Philippine waters since the August 16, 2013 sinking of the ferry St. Thomas Aquinas following a collision with another vessel off Cebu province. The latter incident resulted in 108 confirmed fatalities and 29 people still unaccounted for among the ferry's 870 passenger and crew.