GLOBAL leaders from organisations representing seafarers, shipowners, and other maritime employers met with Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr as part of his foreign policy tour in Brussels, reports Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide.
Mr Marcos ordered a new advisory board to be made up of employers, shipowners, unions, and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to give advice on major maritime issues.
Reform was urged in the country’s seafarer claims industry, where lawyers target seafarers in order to defraud employers.
The Philippines is one of the major suppliers of maritime labour globally.
Mr Marcos pledged action to stave off the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) threat to 50,000 jobs.
Primary issues were the concern of employers and crew that 50,000 seafarers faced being barred from crewing EU-flagged vessels over qualification issues.
The threat is due to a warning from the bloc’s maritime regulator that the Philippines needed to address deficiencies in crew education, training, and certification.
Delegates were reassured to hear Mr Marcos pledge that his administration will address these deficiencies identified by the EMSA.
In 2000, Filipino crew made up 28.5 per cent of the global seafarer population. However, by 2020, that figure dropped to 14 per cent.
Any further decline would jeopardize the US$6.54 billion in wages Filipino seafarers send home yearly to their families.
Seafarers’ unions call for a crackdown on the unethical practices of the claims industry, which, they say, ‘capitalise on the hardships and even the demise of seafarers’.
Mr Marcos also ordered Migrant Workers Minister Susan Ople to establish a maritime advisory committee to address the training issue and consider reforms to the broken seafarers’ claims system.
