Atienza Interisland Ferries Inc.

MV Octo­ber Lav­ender was launched only last Decem­ber and delivered by the ship­builder through its Gen­eral Man­ager Ric Tuliao. The brand new RoPax with a gross ton­nage of 1,200 tons was blessed in simple cere­mon­ies on Thursday, May 6, 2022, at South Har­bor, Manila.

“It will serve the Manila to Coron, Palawan [route],” Atienza said in an inter­view.

Although he admit­ted that his com­pany is still oper­at­ing only at 70 per­cent capa­city com­pared to the pre-pan­demic level, he is optim­istic the volume of cargo and pas­sen­gers will soon pick up since it ini­tially only caters to local tour­ists.

“Mga local tour­ists pa lang,” Atienza said. Even­tu­ally, he expects to get a siz­able num­ber of for­eign vis­it­ors since MV Octo­ber Lav­ender serves Coron, a pop­u­lar tour­ist des­tin­a­tion for both local and for­eign tour­ists.

Apart from its pic­tur­esque lime­stone islands, Coron is also known for world-class World War 2-era wreck diving, beau­ti­ful beaches, crys­tal clear fresh­wa­ter lakes and shal­low water coral reefs.

Apart from its pic­tur­esque lime­stone islands, Coron is also known for world-class World War 2-era wreck diving, beau­ti­ful beaches, crys­tal clear fresh­wa­ter lakes and shal­low water coral reefs.

The 68-meter long MV Octo­ber Lav­ender can accom­mod­ate a max­imum of 484 pas­sen­gers with fully air con­di­tioned rooms and at least 16 trucks. As the com­pany’s flag­ship, it is the biggest in the nine-ves­sel fleet of Atienza Inter­is­land Fer­ries.

In addi­tion to the Manila-Coron route, the com­pany’s pas­sen­ger ships are ply­ing other more pop­u­lar tour­ist des­tin­a­tions: Manila-El Nido; Palawan, Batan­gas-Puerto Galera, Ori­ental Mindoro; and Lub­ang-Occi­dental Mindoro.

Atienza said hav­ing brand new ships gives own­ers sev­eral advant­ages.

“You can sleep well at night,” he said, indic­at­ing the con­fid­ence that the ship will oper­ate hassle-free.“You also have fewer main­ten­ance costs,” he added. Brand new ships are required by the Mari­time Industry Author­ity (Mar­ina) to undergo dry­dock­ing only in their fifth year of oper­a­tion, unlike second-hand ships which are man­dated to dry­dock every two years, accord­ing to Atienza.

Dur­ing the bless­ing of MV Octo­ber Lav­ender, Atienza, who is also a naval archi­tect, thanked the people who were instru­mental in real­iz­ing his dream to start mod­ern­iz­ing his com­pany’s fleet, espe­cially Mar­ina; ship­builder, RAJ & T Mar­ine Ser­vices, which is owned by his class­mate Tuliao; and the Devel­op­ment Bank of the Phil­ip­pines (DBP), which provided fin­an­cing for the ship acquis­i­tion.

Aside from Tuliao, Mar­ina offi­cials led by Region 4 Dir­ector Emmanuel Car­pio, DBP Vice Pres­id­ent Jeane Adamos and industry friends wit­nessed the bless­ing of MV Octo­ber Lav­ender.