Govt urged to boost Philippine ship registry

Govt urged to boost PH ship registry
September 28, 2022 https://www.manilatimes.net/2022/09/28/business/maritime/govt-urged-to-b...

FOR maritime stakeholders, if the Philippines wants to be more globally competitive, then President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. and his administration will have to strengthen the Philippine Ship Registry, as doing so will not only provide jobs for the country's many seafarers but will also help cadets find berths to complete their training.

"Every year, the country gets around 100,000 new students from both the Bachelor of Science in Marine Engineering (BSMarE) and Bachelor of Science in Marine Transportation (BSMT) courses offered by numerous outstanding maritime educational institutions, but only a small percentage of these new cadets can be accommodated by the industry," said Arsenio Padilla Jr., president of Exact Training Center Inc., during the media launch of the EXPO Maritime Philippines 2023–Flag State and Shipbuilders Convention at the Sheraton Manila Hotel recently.

The convention, according to Event organizer Rachelle Bataclan Lopez of the WMOC Group of Companies, will be held from Feb. 16 to 17, 2023 at the Hotel Sofitel Philippine Plaza Manila, and aims to gather representatives from the world's leading flag states and shipbuilding stakeholders to discuss issues within the maritime industry and what can be done to address them.

The event will raise critical maritime issues to gather traction for the new government under President Marcos to respond and push for the country's maritime development.

Padilla said that although the country gets so many students with a lot of potential, of the 100,000 students, only around 25 percent of them will be able to finish the classroom instruction phase of their education.

To make matters worse, he said that only a very small number of them will be able to find a company that can provide them with a berth, a problem that numerous aspiring cadets face for many years now.

"Of these 25,000 cadets [that managed to finish their classroom instruction], only a small number, some 5,000, will be able to go on board to do their shipboard training or find a berth," said Captain Padilla.

Currently, cadets are struggling to find berths, as shipping companies can only send a few cadets per vessel.

Due to this shortage, some cadets are forced to pay a lot of money to agents just so that they can get on a vessel.

"If a cadet goes and studies hard at one of our many maritime schools but then discovers that they can't find a company that can provide them with berth opportunities or on-board training, then their time, effort and money are wasted," Padilla said.

"The Philippine Flag Registry only has around 100 ships but Filipino seafarers account for around 30 percent of the entire maritime labor force in seafaring," he pointed out, highlighting the need for the country to improve its Flag State Registry.

"I think this is what the current administration should focus on: improve and strengthen the Ship Registry of the Philippines so that we can provide more berth," he said.