Seafarers faring better

Seafarers faring better
09/26/2024 https://visayandailystar.com/seafarers-faring-better/

The Magna Carta of Filipino Seafarers was finally signed into law by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., twenty years after the bill was first filed in 2004, seeking to promote the welfare of more than half a million domestic and overseas Filipino seafarers.

At its core, the Magna Carta aims to uphold seafarer’s right to fair and just wages; safe working conditions; and skills, education and competency development, in recognition of the unique challenges that they face. It also establishes mechanisms, rules, and procedures to ensure just execution of decisions granting seafarer’s salaries, wages, benefits, and death and disability claims.

This is quite relevant these days, given the recent attacks on cargo vessels in the Red Sea that has put seafarer’s lives at risk, along with persistent reports of Filipinos being abused at work.

Aside from the protections and benefits, the Magna Carta also provides for a certification process to ensure that our seafarers meet the Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping (STCW), as well as the accepted global maritime labor laws, which will help ensure that Filipinos can keep their place as among the world’s most sought after seafarers, who according to recent data, remit over $2.5 billion every month.

These elevated standards should help boost confidence in the industry that has come under scrutiny for lax training standards and shortcuts in obtaining licenses.

The Magna Carta for Seafarers is indeed a welcome development, but given all the problems and issues facing seafarers, manning agencies, and shipping companies that employ them here and abroad, it cannot be seen as a silver bullet that will solve everything. It is a tool that can help the government, in partnership with the private sector and the stakeholders in the industry, particularly the seafarers themselves, to work together for the good of an industry that has great potential as a source of employment and livelihood for a significant chunk of our population.

Hopefully this long-delayed but welcome development will lead to better lives and livelihoods, especially for the more than half a million Filipino seafarers deployed not just in the country, but all over the globe.*