`Filipino sea­farers must pre­pare for jobs cre­ated by off­shore wind industry’

`Filipino sea­farers must pre­pare for jobs cre­ated by off­shore wind industry’
DAN MADRAZO 28 Aug 2026 https://www.pressreader.com/philippines/manila-times/20260828/2815179379...

MIGRANT Work­ers Sec­ret­ary Hans Leo Cac­dac said Filipino sea­farers must start pre­par­ing now for the jobs that will emerge from the coun­try’s off­shore wind industry, stress­ing the need for new skills as the global mari­time sec­tor shifts toward cleaner energy.

Speak­ing at TheM­a­nila Times forum titled “Winds of Change: Build­ing the Mari­time Sup­ply Chain for Phil­ip­pine Off­shore Wind,” the Depart­ment of Migrant Work­ers (DMW) sec­ret­ary said that the energy trans­ition was already chan­ging the ves­sels, tech­no­lo­gies and skills required in mari­time oper­a­tions.

“For us, the import­ant issue is not only the num­ber of tur­bines that may be installed; it is also the people who will build, install, oper­ate, main­tain and sup­port them,” Cac­dac said.

He said that the Phil­ip­pines should not wait for off­shore wind jobs to emerge before pre­par­ing its work­ers.

“We should not wait for the jobs to change before we change our skills. We should pre­pare our people ahead of the trans­ition,” Cac­dac said.

Filipino sea­farers, he said, would need to become famil­iar with new tech­no­lo­gies, propul­sion sys­tems, safety require­ments and new types of off­shore oper­a­tions.

“We have spent dec­ades devel­op­ing Filipino sea­farers who are trus­ted and employed across the world,” Cac­dac said. “As the mari­time industry changes, we should not wait for the jobs to change before we change our skills.”

He poin­ted to the grow­ing num­ber of Filipino sea­farers mov­ing into spe­cial­ized off­shore roles as a sign of the work­force’s poten­tial.

He cited Sol­stad Off­shore Phil­ip­pines, a licensed Phil­ip­pine man­ning agency sup­port­ing Sol­stad’s global off­shore oper­a­tions, where Filipino sea­farers have worked as chief engin­eers, chief officers, dynamic pos­i­tion­ing oper­at­ors, and other off­shore tech­nical and engin­eer­ing per­son­nel.

He also cited Mag­saysay Mari­time Corp.’s part­ner­ship with Mit­sui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) and the Mari­time Academy of Asia and the Pacific (MAAP) to estab­lish a dynamic pos­i­tion­ing train­ing cen­ter in Bataan, spe­cific­ally in response to the grow­ing demand for dynamic pos­i­tion­ing oper­at­ors and other skilled per­son­nel for off­shore wind and off­shore devel­op­ment.

“These are very import­ant sig­nals for us,” Cac­dac said. “They tell us that the trans­ition is not something that will hap­pen 20 years from now, but the skills that are being deman­ded today should be trans­ition­ing now as we speak.”

Cac­dac said the need to pre­pare Filipino sea­farers would extend bey­ond off­shore wind as new tech­no­lo­gies and altern­at­ive energy sources begin to affect ship­ping.

He cited elec­tri­fic­a­tion, hydro­gen, ammo­nia and other altern­at­ive fuels, while not­ing that nuc­lear propul­sion could even­tu­ally affect com­mer­cial ship­ping des­pite con­tinu­ing con­cerns over safety, reg­u­la­tion, infra­struc­ture costs and inter­na­tional accept­ance.

For the DMW, Cac­dac said that the chal­lenge was not simply to facil­it­ate the deploy­ment of Filipino work­ers but to ensure that they remained rel­ev­ant, com­pet­it­ive and pro­tec­ted as the mari­time sec­tor changed.

“Our task is not simply to facil­it­ate deploy­ment but to make sure that the Filipino worker remains rel­ev­ant, com­pet­it­ive and pro­tec­ted as the global mari­time sec­tor evolves,” he said.

He called for stronger cooper­a­tion among gov­ern­ments, shipown­ers, man­ning agen­cies, train­ing insti­tu­tions and industry rep­res­ent­at­ives to anti­cip­ate changes in mari­time employ­ment and develop the skills that work­ers would need.

Cac­dac cited the Global Wind Energy Coun­cil’s Phil­ip­pine Off­shore Wind Sup­ply Chain Study, which iden­ti­fied skilled labor as one of the Phil­ip­pines’ key oppor­tun­it­ies and recog­nized the poten­tial of Filipino sea­farers while point­ing to the need for addi­tional train­ing and off­shore-spe­cific com­pet­en­cies.

“Off­shore wind can now take that exper­i­ence to the next level,” he said.

The Phil­ip­pines, he added, should not only become a mar­ket for off­shore wind tech­no­lo­gies but also a source of skilled mari­time work­ers who can sup­port the industry’s growth.

“When the global mari­time industry moves to the next gen­er­a­tion of energy and tech­no­logy, Filipino sea­farers should be there not merely as work­ers look­ing for jobs but as skilled pro­fes­sion­als help­ing drive that trans­ition,” he said.

To help make that hap­pen, Cac­dac said that the DMW was work­ing to identify Filipino work­ers whose skills could be matched with emer­ging oppor­tun­it­ies through its Com­mit­tee on Act­ive Labor Mar­ket Inter­ven­tion.

The com­mit­tee pro­files over­seas Filipino work­ers and return­ing work­ers and matches their skills with poten­tial employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies in the Phil­ip­pines and abroad.

Cac­dac said about 4,000 work­ers return­ing from the Middle East had been matched with poten­tial jobs based on their pro­files, although these pos­i­tions were not spe­cific­ally in off­shore wind.

Cac­dac said the DMW could work with the Depart­ment of Energy and other agen­cies to align avail­able human resources with the skills needed by the emer­ging off­shore wind sec­tor.

“The good news is the tech­no­logy is already there,” he said. “This is not rocket sci­ence any­more.”

“What it takes is the polit­ical will on the side of gov­ern­ment and, of course, social dia­logue and bilat­eral endeavors with shipown­ers as well as gov­ern­ments, for­eign gov­ern­ments,” accord­ing to the migrant chief.

Cac­dac assured industry stake­hold­ers of the DMW’s cooper­a­tion as the Phil­ip­pines pre­pares its mari­time work­force for the off­shore wind industry.

“We need to roll up our sleeves and start work­ing,” Cac­dac said.