The administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. will strictly comply with the standards of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) within three months to put an end to the woes of the country’s maritime industry.
Speaker Martin Romualdez made this assertion on Tuesday in Brussels, stressing that addressing issues of Filipino seafarers in Europe is a priority of the Marcos administration.
EMSA had flagged the country for deficiencies in seafarer training and education, and about 50,000 Filipino seafarers working in European vessels risks being banned if the concerns are not immediately addressed, owing to the Philippines’ repeated failure to hurdle the EMSA evaluation in the last 16 years.
In response, the Chief Executive ordered the creation of an advisory board to address deficiencies identified by EMSA in Filipino seafarers’ education, training, and certification system.
“There’s a three-month period which we have to actually comply. If not, our graduate certificates will not be recognized, will lose their effect. It’s such an unfortunate condition. We all know that Filipino seafarers are the best,” said Romualdez in an interview on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-European Union (ASEAN-EU) commemorative summit in the capital of Belgium.
Romualdez said there is a “sense of urgency” in tackling legislation in the hope of improving the educational system for the maritime industry.
“There are always a number of legislations seeking the best for the welfare of our seafarers,” the Speaker said.
Romualdez said, however, there are other countries that “perhaps have a more liberal view, and that’s what makes us less competitive.”
“We’ve lost our competitive edge to countries like India, who doubled up, so we’ve lost that market share. Our conditions are more stringent,” he pointed out.
One of the measures pending at the House of Representatives is the proposed Maritime Education and Training Act, which seeks to push for a modern maritime education and training regime and support the needs of maritime students and professionals.
“They definitely deserve to be given the best opportunities to excel,” Romualdez said.
In his meeting with international maritime employers and shipowners in Brussels, the President assured the EU’s transport officials the Philippines is actively working to address certification issues concerning Filipino seafarers to make them compliant with the Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping (STCW) Convention.
Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) Secretary Susan “Toots” Ople said Republic Act 11641, which created the DMW, identifies the creation of an advisory body to assess training and qualifications.
“The President made it very clear, how important the welfare and the plight of our seafarers is to, not just… to the country as a whole and that is a physical, actually, attendance to this engagement this morning manifested that it’s a top priority, that this is a very, very high priority,” Romualdez said.