MANILA, Philippines — Rescue teams searched Sunday for any remaining survivors from a ferry that collided with a much larger boat at the mouth of Manila Bay and sank. At least 25 people drowned.

Search teams rescued 203 people after the 11 a.m. accident but didn't know exactly how many more they were looking for. As is common in the Philippines, the M.V. San Nicolas had far more people on board than the 193 who appeared on the passenger and crew list.

Details were sketchy, but survivors and witnesses said the wooden-hulled San Nicolas hit the larger, steel-hulled ferry and was pulled along after it snagged on a ladder. Panicked passengers rushed to one side of the stricken vessel, causing it to capsize.

"It was every man for himself," said Millet Sadang, 40. "Everybody just grabbed a life vest."

None of the nearly 1,700 people aboard the Superferry 12 were injured, and some said they weren't aware of the collision until their ship dropped inflatable life rafts.

The owners of both ships claimed they were on course, and visibility was reportedly two miles at the time of the accident, which occurred 50 miles south of Manila.

The ships, going in opposite directions, were supposed to pass each other on their starboard sides, but they ended up port-to-port, Coast guard commander Vice Admiral Reuben Lista said.

"Apparently they did not give each other enough room to maneuver," Lista said.

Genevieve Fabavier, 16, who was traveling with her 7-year-old brother, said she grabbed a vest and jumped into the water with her brother after the accident, though neither could swim.

"It sank so fast that when I came to the surface, the boat was gone," Fabavier said. She said she was battered by waves as "big as mountains" before she and her brother were rescued.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who met with some of the survivors, said she wanted the Maritime Inquiry Board to start an investigation Monday and submit a report within a week.

"Heads will roll," Arroyo said.

Some passengers had secured life vests the night before when monsoon rains and strong winds whipped up waves that nearly capsized the boat, said Harold Abrera, 23, who was returning to Manila after visiting his grandmother.

Lista said the survivors included 21 people found on shore. It was unclear if they swam or were taken there by small rescue boats.

Gina Virtusio, spokeswoman for WG&A Philippines, which operates the Superferry 12, said the vessel was cruising out of Manila Bay when it was struck by the smaller ship.

"We were in the right of way en route to Cebu, then they hit us on the port side," Virtusio told The Associated Press by telephone. She said all 1,506 passengers and 184 crew members of the Superferry 12 were safe and that the ship appeared to have suffered little damage.

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Lemuel Fabula, general manager of San Nicolas Shipping Lines, said the smaller, 270-ton ship, built in 1980, was also following its normal route.

"Maybe the big one didn't see the smaller one. When steel hits wood, you know what happens," Fabula said.

Small boats and ferries, which are often overloaded and lack proper safety, are the chief means of travel among islands in the Philippine archipelago, where boat accidents are common.

The sprawling archipelago was the site of the world's worst peacetime sea disaster when a ferry sank after colliding with a fuel tanker five days before Christmas in 1987, killing more than 4,340 people.

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