The deadliest peacetime maritime disaster was not the Titanic but the collision of the Philippine ferry MV Doña Paz and the tanker MT Vector on December 20, 1987. The ferry was built in Hiroshima in 1963 as the Himeyuri Maru, rated for 608 passengers. Sulpicio Lines bought her in 1975 and renamed her Don Sulpicio, and after a June 1979 fire gutted her, with all 1,164 aboard surviving, insurers declared her a constructive total loss. Sulpicio bought the wreck back, repaired her, and returned her to service as the Doña Paz on a twice-weekly Manila to Tacloban route via Catbalogan. She left Tacloban at 6:30 a.m. at the peak of Christmas travel, and at 10:40 p.m. in the Tablas Strait she met the Vector, chartered by Caltex and carrying 8,800 barrels of mostly gasoline, with no valid license, no lookout, and no qualified master.

The gasoline ignited and the sea itself burned. The ferry’s lights failed, life jacket cabinets were padlocked, an apprentice alone was on the bridge, and the captain was reportedly watching a Betamax movie while officers drank beer. The Doña Paz sank within two hours and the Vector within four. Authorities took eight hours to register the collision and eight more to start searching. The passing cargo ship MV Don Claudio pulled 25 people from the burning oil with cargo nets: 23 ferry passengers and two Vector crew. No Doña Paz crew survived. The manifest listed 1,493 passengers and 59 crew, but illegal gangway tickets and unlisted children meant far more, and a 1999 presidential task force counted over 4,300 passengers, for a death toll recognized at around 4,385.

• Sulpicio argued that anyone not on its manifest was never aboard and owed nothing.
• The Philippine Supreme Court held the Vector’s owners liable and ruled that unlisted victims’ families could claim compensation.
• Caltex was cleared of liability under the charter party arrangement.
• Fourteen-year-old survivor Valeriana Duma’s story went undocumented until a 2012 television program.
• In April 2019 the RV Petrel found the Doña Paz upright about 500 meters down, with the Vector about two kilometers away.