MV June Aster missing persons down to 8; 4 passengers didn't board

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The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) was able to verify that four passengers were not able to board the ill-fated MV June Aster, which brought down the total number of missing persons from 12 to eight.

Before this development, the PCG had been holding out hope that they could still find survivors. This included cases where ticket-holders did not board the ship at all.

“Based on the verification, three of the four individuals said they had intended to book tickets from Coron to Manila but mistakenly booked the opposite route, from Manila to Coron,” PCG spokesperson Commodore Noemie Cayabyab said in a statement on Wednesday night.

“The fourth passenger had booked another ticket and had already traveled to Coron via another passenger vessel on September 5, 2026,” she added.

The PCG received word on Tuesday that there were four people who did not board the vessel. They were able to locate and physically verify that all of the four passengers were alive.

This led to the PCG revising the number of missing, which was based on the ship’s manifest, or the list of people and cargo onboard.

Meanwhile, a person who was initially rescued from the MV June Aster had passed away in the hospital, raising the death toll to 77.

In its latest report, the PCG said that this means that there were 128 people on the ship in total. Their latest tallies are: 77 dead, 43 survivors, and eight still missing. —LDF, GMA News