Seafaring jobs at stake

Seafaring jobs at stake
Myla Iglesias - February 6, 2023 https://malaya.com.ph/news_business/seafaring-jobs-at-stake/

Painting job Filipino seafarers on board a shipping vessel to Russia MARINA Photo
Philippine authorities are working double time to save the jobs of nearly 50,000 Filipino seafarers abroad on European ships and $7 billion in remittances each year, according to the Department of Transportation

This, DOTr Secretary Jaime Bautista said, comes on the heels of a European Commission’s (EC) impending action in April or in May on whether or not to recognize any more Philippine-issued Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping (STCW).

Bautista said, “we may even have to move heaven and earth, if need be, to ensure these European standards are satisfactorily met.”

Bautista welcomed President Marcos’ creation of an inter-agency committee to take up the EC’s impending action through its European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA). “It’s about time this decades-old issue is resolved and put to rest”, Bautista said, noting that for 16 years now, the Philippines has failed to fully address the findings and observations of EMSA.

The inter-agency panel includes representatives from the Departments of Transportation, Migrant Workers, Labor, Foreign Affairs, and the Commission on Higher Education apart from Maritime Industry Authority, an attached agency of DOTr.

Bautista was quick to point out that “a lot more work needs to be done” even after MARINA had submitted the Philippine Response to the EMSA in March 2022. The 2022 Philippine Response supposedly gave details of the remedial actions MARINA put in place as well as the short and long-term measures it would carry out later.

Based on that response, EC will decide whether or not to withdraw its recognition of Philippine-issued STCW certificates.

Given the Philippines’ shortcomings, Bautista pushed for a more comprehensive plan or a template to address the EMSA findings and related issues.

“So much is at stake here, not only jobs and much-needed remittances but also our credibility and competence as a maritime regulator,” he said.

An EMSA ban, he warned, will trigger a domino effect and the rest of the world will look down on the Philippine seafaring industry and probably affect its dominant place in the global market.