Convention drafts Magna Carta for Seafarers amid doubt, concern over feasibility

By JEREMAIAH M. OPINIANO
OFW Journalism Consortium

THE Filipino Seafarers National Convention (FSNC), held last September 27-28 at the Manila Hotel, was successful in producing a draft Magna Carta for Seafarers, and in formulating an Agenda for the Empowerment of Filipino Seafarers and their Families.

The Convention was organized along three main themes: nurturing excellence and competitiveness among seafarers, rationalizing the legal environment and programs for seafarers, and empowering seafarers and their families.

But participants coming from government agencies, the shipping industry, civil society groups, and seafarers and their wives, have mixed reactions about the feasibility of the Convention's outcomes.

The Convention, which gathered over-400 participants, identified problem areas, surveyed existing laws and government bodies affecting seafarers, and designed a comprehensive program to empower seafarers and their families.

A proliferation of laws, pronouncements

Former Foreign Affairs undersecretary Merlin Magallona, who chaired the Convention, said there are four laws, seven executive orders, nine proclamations, five presidential decrees, and two republic acts that have a bearing on the seafaring profession.

A Magna Carta for seafarers, he said, will "codify all relevant legal and policy provisions pertaining to seafarers," and lead to "modernizing the conditions at work in terms of the rights and welfare of Filipino seafarers".

In his address, Vice-President Teofisto Guingona, whose office funded the event, said that it is a challenge reviewing all relevant laws and regulations, upgrading existing programs and services, and drafting a "Bill of Rights" for seafarers, which is targeted for completion by 2005.

The Magna Carta will be pursued by Vice-President Guingona with Congressman Roseller Barinaga, who chairs the Committee on Labor and Employment at the House of Representatives, as its main sponsor.

Seafarers skeptical

The draft Magna Carta for Seafarers and Agenda for the Empowerment of Seafarers and their Families may seem favorable to the country's over-500,000 domestic and international merchant marines, but some seafarers themselves are skeptical that these items will actually address their plight.

The working Magna Carta draft that Convention organizers made it clear that this proposed act "establishes rights and privileges for seafarers"; "addresses the need to effective educate Filipino seamen on their rights and responsibilities, and the programs and laws relevant to them"; and "recognizes the support of the shipping industry in promoting the interests of seafarers." It was the single biggest issue discussed during the Convention.

Crescencio (not his real name), 34, a domestic seaman, said that he is not confident that the Magna Carta and the empowerment agenda discussed by the participants will amount to anything. He was cautious about sharing his views for fear of being blacklisted by manning agencies.

Problems with remittances

He echoed complaints by other seamen that manning agencies do not remit, or remit delinquently, their contributions to the Social Security System. "Manning agencies will only remit [Social Security System payments] if seafarers want to apply for a loan. Money is also a hot issue in the shipping industry," he said.

He also complained that many of the outputs of the convention were for merchant marines manning ocean-going vessels, and did not necessarily address the concerns of domestic seafarers. With over 200,000 merchant marines, the Philippines provides a fifth of the world's total number, making it the largest supplier of international seafarers.

Roger Cordero, a seafarer on an international vessel who was once blacklisted, complained at a workshop on seafarers' rights and welfare that many manning agencies "purposely delay" sending remittances to the families of seafarers. He proposed that these manning agencies give the remittances directly to the seafarers' families. A representative of a manning agency responded that the practice is "not true of all manning agencies."

For his part, Tommy Ita-as of the Seaman's Church Institute in Philadelphia recommended that manning agencies be required to have an allotment plan that would ensure the remittances do not take more than four days to transmit. This, he said, should eradicate, or at least minimize, the practice of "intentionally delaying" remittances to the families of seafarers.

Current labor regulations governing ocean-going seafarers requre foreign employers to send salaries of the merchant marines to their families through the Philippine manning agencies whom they deal with.

Manning agencies have mixed reactions

And while seamen expressed their doubts, manning agencies had mixed reactions about the importance of this proposed piece of legislation for the seafarers.

The manning agencies that participated also had their complaints about the preparations for the convention, saying that the outputs that emerged were done prior to the Convention, and that there was a lack of input from players in the shipping industry.

Some of them said that they still have to study the proposed Magna Carta for Seafarers that Vice-President Guingona promised to lobby for before Congress.

Shipowners have their own concerns

"We need another technical working group before we submit this Magna Carta to Congress. There are some loopholes in the proposed document. By doing so, that will also be fair to us (in the shipping industry). The industry is also our bread and butter," said shipowner Capt. Donato Murphy, who is affiliated with the United Filipino Seafarers (UFS) union.

Some anonymous representatives of the Filipino Association for Mariners' Employment (FAME), a large network of shipowners, expressed reservations about the Magna Carta as they think this will result in "the death of the shipping industry." Following the Convention, attempts to solicit comments from members of FAME, such as its president Capt. Victor Aldanese, via electronic mail and letters sent through facsimile, were unsuccessful.

It is believed that the passage of the Magna Carta for Seafarers will help reform the employment practices of manning agencies and foreign principals, i.e., the remittance problems previously described, and the blacklisting of seafarers who complain to their foreign principals.

But for Capt. Jimmy Ignacio, whose company, CF Sharp, is the country's second largest manning agency deploying over 12,000 seafarers in ocean-going ships, the proposed Magna Carta is "timely and relevant."

"I support the Magna Carta so that seafarers are given the chance to empower themselves," Ignacio said. He believes that seafarers have the right to demand the proper settlement of salaries and insurance and injury claims, and redress of grievances.
CF Sharp, Ignacio said, values these principles in their deployment of seamen for ocean-going vessels.

Major shipowners skip Convention

Renowned shipowners such as Capt. Gregorio Oca of the Associated Marine Officers' and Seamens' Union of the Philippines (AMOSUP), Aldanese, and Magsaysay Shipping Lines owner Doris Magsaysay-Ho were absent during the Convention. Oca, ironically, sits on the organizing committee of the Convention.

"I don't care if they (big names in shipping) are not with us in this Convention. This is a seafarers' convention, not a manning agencies' convention. Maybe they should hold their own convention," Cordero, also president of the civil society group Merchant Marine Officers Association (MMOA), said.

In a press conference last August, these shipowners called for the scrapping of the proposed Magna Carta for Seafarers, saying that the convention should either be postponed or cancelled.

Their move was countered by Vice President Guingona who, a week after the shipowners' conference, called a press conference hosted by the Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerant People (ECMI) of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), and attended by Military Ordinariate bishop Ramon Arguelles, migrant NGOs, and seafarers' groups.

Creation of a single gov't agency proposed

Among the proposed outputs during the convention was the creation of a single government agency that will address all the concerns of seafarers. The proposed agency, which could be called either the National Maritime Administration, the Department of Maritime Affairs or the National Seafarers Administration, will unify the work of the 13 agencies, currently doing the job.

Last year, the Philippines made it to the "White List" of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which meant that the country is a source of well-trained seafarers, has faithfully complied with the provisions of the 1978 International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW).

But the globalization of the shipping industry has resulted in the displacement of Filipino seafarers by crew from other nations, such as China.

Jesuit chaplain Fr. Roland Doriol of Apostleship of the Sea (AOS)-Cebu chaplaincy, quoting a Filipino captain in Hong Kong, said the country should further "improve training and education, and insist on discipline for future seafarers."

Protection of rights, welfare of seafarers, families

Pastoral workers of AOS in the Philippines are hoping that the Convention will lead to the protection of the rights and welfare of Filipino seafarers and their families.

Rosie Fernandez of AOS-Davao chaplaincy urged stakeholders in the industry to look at the welfare of seafarers' wives and families. "The problems of seafarers, and the problems of the wives, are different," Fernandez said, adding that AOS Davao has already formed over 100 associations of seafarers' wives.

Fernandez added seafarers have confided to AOS workers during ship visitation that manning agencies are not concerned about the welfare of their families. "Money is what the shipowners want. They look at seafarers as robots. For us in AOS, we feel their problems," she said.

Filipino seafarers are the single largest group of merchant marines plying oceangoing vessels. Figures from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) show that in 2001, some 204,951 Filipino seafarers were deployed.

Last year, Filipino seafarers sent US$1.093 billion in remittances, approximately a sixth of the US$6.324 billion total remittances from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) during the period.

Scalabrinian father Savino Bernardi of AOS-Manila said the Philippines has over 514,000 registered seafarers, over 460 manning agencies, 76 maritime schools, 37 training centers, and 13 government agencies working for seafarers.