Philippine ferry fire death toll reaches 35 as first bodies arrive for identification

Off the coast of Palawan, the charred remains of the M/V June Aster have begun yielding their dead — at least 35 lives lost to a fire that tore through the vessel in seconds on a Wednesday evening, with 54 souls still unaccounted for. The Philippines, an archipelago bound together by sea lanes and the ferries that traverse them, has endured this grief before: two comparable disasters in the past three years alone. Each recovery operation answers some questions while leaving the deeper one untouched — why, in a nation so dependent on maritime passage, the vessels carrying ordinary people remain