Life is short, fires happen.

 Five dead, 86 missing after fire aboard MV June Aster off Coron

The passenger-cargo vessel MV June Aster caught fire on the evening of 9 September 2026 in waters off Coron, Palawan, while carrying 117 passengers and 17 crew. The blaze was reported at about 6:45 p.m. Philippine time, roughly 1.2 nautical miles northeast of Barangay Marcilla.

As of 10–11 September, the Philippine Coast Guard reported five dead, 43 rescued and 86 still unaccounted for, based on the ship’s manifest of 134 people aboard. Search and rescue operations continued. Two Chilean nationals were among those rescued. The captain survived; Atienza Shipping said four crew members were missing.

The vessel and the voyage

The June Aster, operated by Atienza Interisland Ferries Inc., is a 2002-built passenger-cargo ferry of about 490 gross tons. It had passed a Philippine Coast Guard safety inspection in March 2026 and was listed for interisland routes including Manila–Coron–El Nido. It left Baseco in Manila on the evening of 8 September and was due in Coron the following evening. Cargo included motorcycles, an electric car, a forklift and a pick-up van. Coron, in the Calamian Islands, is a major tourist destination for diving and island-hopping.

The fire and response

Coast Guard video showed the ship engulfed in flames. Strong currents later shifted the vessel several nautical miles from its initial position. The Coast Guard led the response, with assistance from other vessels, Coast Guard Sub-Station Turda, the Coron Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office and local fishermen. Rescued passengers were taken to the covered court in Barangay Turda; some were not wearing life vests. Seven survivors were transferred to a hospital in Culion. Several people remained hospitalized, including some in critical condition. The Coast Guard also prepared oil-spill equipment.

Investigation

The cause had not been established as of 10 September. Preliminary survivor accounts indicated that the fire began in the cargo hold after a loud explosion and smoke, then spread rapidly. Authorities said a full investigation would follow once the fire was fully extinguished and the vessel could be boarded.

Figures remained provisional while search operations continued.

I have taken this ship a few times in the past. It is slower than the 2go ferry but cheaper. It is usually a overnight trip. 2go the other ferry line runs the trip in 4 hours less, however their schedule is variable. If you do a 2go trip, you could arrive at random hours in Coron. Which means if you are on vacation, you could arrive in the middle of the night on 2go or some oher random hour and it just messes up your vacation schedule. Wheras this boat schedule docked morning time, you had a nice sleep overnight. Fresh and ready to enjoy the day, grab breaksfast and check in a hotel at noon. Obviously this will make Coron trips more expensive and supplies there more of a hassle. Coron is a quaint little island vacation spot. However doing business there I understand is a hassle, as the locals are unreliable workers and one needs to import workers+food from Manila. Below is a video I shot on a trip a few years ago on this ship.

Risk taking 2

 Went back to the machine seller this morning.  Left the house super early to beat traffic.  Very heavy rain and a couple huge pools on the water to contend with driving down to Batangas.  

The company selling the equipment is Korean.  I met the QC guy who also translated from English to Korean with the owner and engineer.  

The owner gave us a tour, and seemed eager to offload a lot of older equipment so I may be getting more from him. 

I got the full reason why the machinery was for sale.  It is older and lacks the automated cutting and packaging equipment.  Which by the looks of things is at least 2-3 workers per shift he needs additional.  Plus the girls are not so accurate in cutting the IV tubing to length.  

Coming back on the expressway, there was a bit of a construction zone stopping traffic, and there was jersey barriers seperating the work area in the middle where construction was happening.  

It was a shock to see a old JB Hunt truck pulling a cargo container barrel thru the center of the construction work next to me, run over several barrels of water, smash a genset with lights, and run over some other materials.  Coming to a stop maybe 30 feet in front of a brand new big Komatsu excavator.  

The driver and his passenger looked like the usual skinny meth head type, so no surprise there.  Old poorly maintained equipment run into the ground plus the lowest paid meth head is a dangerous but common thing here.  

I had a row of jersey barriers and a missing lane of  road between me and the truck so I was more in the WTF mode than fearing for my safety.

made this planter today:  Background removed by AI.  Item not touched.

Taking a risk

 Sexytary and I are taking a 6500 dollar risk tomorrow.

She fronted cash to buy 2 complete extrusion machine lines.

A deal came up for working machinery used to make IV lines. Getting replaced by bigger machines. Selling for scrap price. 

It only needs a die change, and swap the 3 phase motor to.a single phase motor, and a concrete pad to sit it on.

One machine is 10 years old, other is 20.  Well maintained, but all analog. 

Even still, its a big  shop upgrade.  Machine number 2 I will sell, for enough to pay for both units.  The markup is my time, skills and the like.  

The boys started clearing out shop space today.  2 truck loads in total.  

If everything goes to plan, we will be able to make much longer boards and with less labor, while making more board feet per hour. 

I have lost sales due to the inability to make longer boards, so this will be a huge upgrade.

Next up is the plastic pellet mill.

Business has fallen thru the floor

Last 6 weeks or so, business has fallen through the floor.

I am trying to analyze it to find a solution, but the stuff that worked in the past is no longer cutting it.

Issue number one, but not ranked in importance.

Sales babe has been distracted. I got a business manager to cover for her, which has kept people engaged. However, she is lagging on the list of job tasks: blogs, videos, TikTok, etc.

The Grokbot has been kicking ass the last few weeks, plugging the holes in the sales funnel, but still no sales.

Issue two

Weather and flooding. People are not spending, no motivation. Lots of window shopping, but even there, engagement is falling.

Issue three

Diversification of social media outlets needs to be done NOW. Faceborg/IG is 35% down in the last thirty days. My FB feed absolutely sucks. It is mostly offensive gay and random shit. If that is my experience, it is likely others too.

Issue four

I need to apply for more grants. Enough with this shit of everyone else getting a grant, I build the project, and they get the full benefit of the project.

Issue five

Financial hangover from the shop move has killed my reserve. It had to happen, but it still hurts.

I need to somehow pull about 10 grand out of my ass in order to right the ships course.  Which is onlye or two decent orders.  So it is not impossible.

------------------Update----------------------

Re-reading this pinged a hard Philippines lesson I learned in 2013.

Sonewhere around the end 2012 beginning of 2013 my primary sales channel was a site called Sulit.com  Silut means discount in tagalog.    It was the place to find anything here as the yellow pages etc was useless and Craigslist was next to useless.    I was getting 2-3 phone calls a day from my ads there and even more when I paid for a ad boost.  I was doing well.  Had 4 welders fabricating signage.  Things were doing great.  Despite my wife refusing to work in the office, doing the Tagalog phone calls and me doing it in English.    Then everything died.  Sulit was bought by OLX and I went from 2-3 calls a day to 2-3 calls a month.  I had no other sales funnel and a few months later, I could not even pay rent, much salary.  

I had no FB, no IG, no website, and barely a YouTube following.

Point being is first is I did not recognize the issue soon enough, and second I did not pivot nor even know where to pivot to.  

This is the hard experience that is not in the business how to books.

Strategic oil reserve

 came across this press release... Make of it what you will..

ASEAN | PHILIPPINES

​ | Gulf Giants Offer 100% Foreign Funding for Massive Strategic Oil Hubs in the Philippines

​By ASEAN/News

​MANILA — The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have formally proposed to fully finance and construct massive strategic oil storage facilities in the Philippines, insulating the domestic market from international supply shocks.

Clarifying the structural framework of the agreement, Department of Energy officials confirmed that these initiatives are government-to-government proposals where the foreign states will cover 100 percent of the capital expenditure using their own budgets, avoiding any drain on the Philippine national treasury.

​The terms and current timeline emerged during recent hearings held by the Senate Committee on Energy led by Panel Chair Senator Erwin Tulfo.

Department of Energy Oil Industry Management Bureau Director Rino Abad confirmed Riyadh's commitment to establishing a major domestic storage hub, noting that Saudi Arabia has already requested and received an official concept note from Manila to map out the next operational steps.

Under this framework, the Saudi-backed facility targets a capacity of up to 50 million barrels.

Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates has tabled a parallel proposal for a separate depot, which the Department of Energy will formally engage and process next.

​The agreements operate on a dual commercial and emergency model. While the infrastructure will remain under foreign state or corporate ownership and function commercially to trade fuel across Asian markets during peacetime, the negotiated framework mandates that the Philippines secures a legally binding "reserve right".

This guarantees Manila priority procurement and direct access to draw from the stockpiles the moment a global supply crisis manifests.

​This alignment directly addresses vulnerabilities in maritime trade corridors. Director Abad emphasized that both Gulf nations operate specialized export infrastructure capable of bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, providing a vital buffer against regional conflicts that routinely trigger domestic pump price spikes.

​Operational planning is advancing through structured diplomatic and technical channels.

​• 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘊𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘺: Up to 50 million barrels designated for the Saudi-backed facility.

​• 𝘕𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘱𝘴: The newly institutionalized Philippine Strategic Petroleum Reserve Team is leading ongoing bilateral negotiations with Saudi counterparts to establish technical timelines, documentation, and regulatory compliance frameworks.

​• 𝘌𝘹𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘋𝘪𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩: The Department of Energy will formally engage the United Arab Emirates administration to advance parallel documentation for their corresponding depot initiative.

​Complementing these foreign-backed projects, the state-run Philippine National Oil Company is independently advancing a localized reserve in Bataan targeting completion by 2027.

However, given that national consumption rests at approximately 450,000 to 460,000 barrels daily, the multi-million-barrel foreign investments remain critical to establishing a comprehensive economic safety buffer.