The Philippines continues to emerge as the biggest supplier of international ship-crew
The close to 90,000-strong Associated Marine Officers’ and Seamen’s Union of the Philippines (AMOSUP), together with its affiliated organizations – the Philippine Transport General Workers Organization (PTGWO) and International Transports Workers Federation (ITF), lauded President Benigno S. Aquino III for his all-out support to the welfare of Filipino seafarers here and abroad.
AMOSUP President Dr. Condrado Fernandez Oca described President Aquino as “a living and guiding inspiration to our seafarers as the government has come out with a strong commitment to implement more programs and services to promote the welfare of our seafarers and their families.”
Oca said this was evident in the speech of President Aquino read by Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda D. Baldoz at the first ever held “International Seafarer Family Convention” (ISFC) last Aug. 4 to 5, 2011, at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City.
The President, in his speech said, “Our 22-Point Labor Policy Agenda, the Labor and Employment Program 2011, 2012; and the Philippine Development Plan 2011-2016 shall continue to guide our policy makers and program implementors to ensure that the “seafarer and his family get the best out of the program and policy.” True to the President’s pronouncement that the Philippines has earned the title as ‘the crewing capital of the world,” the number of Filipino seafarers currently deployed aboard inter-ocean vessels, keeps on increasing, as the demand for their services so speaks.
Mr. Aquino in the same speech, described the Filipino seafarers as the Philippines’ “sailing ambassadors,” demonstrating before the global community “our inherent traits that make the Filipinos great workers.” The Philippines continues to emerge as the biggest supplier of international ship-crew as international manning principals take Filipino seamen as “‘preferred choice” based on their “outstanding qualities, technical know-how, industry, trustworthiness, reliability, hardwork, and command of the English language.”
Dr. Oca, son of the late AMOSUP founder Capt. Gregorio Sta. Cruz Oca MALICSE(MM.,Ph.D.), came up with a special note saying that Filipino seafarers give utmost priority to their families why they enlist for deployment aboard inter-ocean vessels. “Ask every Filipino seafarer why he enlists for overseas deployment. The answer is ‘family'”.
For his part, AMOSUP executive vice president Vice Admiral Eduardo Ma. R. Santos (AFP, ret.), who is also the president of the Maritime Academy of Asia and the Pacific (MAAP), stressed the command of English language of Filipino seafarers enable them to communicate with their superiors and fellow seafarers of foreign nationalities, as English is the international medium of communications and instructions.
The country has close 700,000 seafarers working in inter-island and ocean-going vessels. Some are now working in land-based companies, some in offices of shipping firms. One third of the total international crewing fleet are Filipinos. By conservative estimate, this shows around 340,000 to 380,000
Filipino seamen are currently deployed aboard inter-ocean or foreign vessels, as there are now 1.25 to 1.5 million seafarers of various nationalities in the world, based on data culled from the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which also revealed that there at least 25,000 of the world’s crewing fleet are “female” seafarers.
Flipino seafarers accounted for US$3.8 billion in remittances during the first quarter of this year (2011), Just for the first quarter of current year, they have already pumped in US$$737.3 to the Philippine coffers, based on reports of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
Source: Manila Bulletin