A VETERAN ship captain and maritime executive slammed the suggestions made by House Committee on Civil Service and Professional Regulation chairman Kristine Alexie Tutor that manning agencies and the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) should find a new market for seafarers amid “pirate” attacks and low remittances.
Tutor said in a statement that Filipino seafarers would rather risk death, serious injury, or abduction in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz than lose their jobs.
“Those seafarers know they can never earn in our country the wages and benefits they have as crew members of foreign vessels. They also know that seafarers of other nationalities will accept the deployment when they decline deployment to that danger zone,” she said.
Edgardo Flores, veteran ship captain and consultant for Eastern Mediterranean Maritime Ltd., said Tutor was ill-advised with the supposed new markets for seafarers’ deployment.
He called for “deep understanding of the maritime and shipping industry.”
Flores pointed to finding jobs in the Philippines as an alternative instead of looking for new markets.
“It took decades before we entered these markets. We should find alternative jobs here for displaced seafarers,” he said.
DMW issued Department Order 01 (Series of 2024) last April, advising all Licensed Manning Agencies (LMAs) and their accredited principals or employers to provide additional compensation and security measures for Filipinos who have agreed to continue with their voyage in said areas and to consider diverting the voyages of ships to avoid the said areas.
It also gives seafarers the right to refuse to join a ship that will pass through the said high-risk and war-like zones.
Not a piracy attack
Flores, a prominent Philippine maritime personality, pointed out on his social media page that the attacks in the Red Sea and Straight of Hormuz are not acts of piracy, as Tutor said.
It can be recalled that the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) and the International Bargaining Forum (IBF) designated the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden as “high-risk areas” (HRAs) and “war-like zones” (WLZs) last March due to armed militant attacks on merchant ships.
The Red Sea crisis is tagged as a geopolitical conflict that started in October 2023 when the Iran-backed Houthi movement in Yemen launched missiles and armed drones at Israel, demanding an end to the invasion of the Gaza Strip.
“Hindi po pirate attacks ang nangyayari sa Red Sea at Straight of Hormuz. Militant attacks po ‘yun. Ibang-iba po ‘yun sa piracy na ransom ang hinihingi ng abductors,” Flores maintained.
Bottomline: Decreasing remittance
More than the looming threat to seafarers’ lives and job security, Tutor instructed the DMW to “develop new deployment markets” for seafarers as their cash remittances are lower than $7 billion.
“$2.66 billion came from deployments to the Americas and their flagged ships, while $2.05 billion were from European deployments,” Tutor said, citing figures from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
“‘Yan po ba ang mababaw na solusyon sa problema ngayon ng mga dakilang Pinoy seafarers, maghanap ng new markets? Ang masakit pa eh sa remittance ka lang pala po nag-aalala kasi nababawasan ang sabi niyo,” Flores commented.
Be the first to comment