The United Filipino Seafarers, a globally-recognized union of maritime professionals with 57,000 members, expressed concern over the declining number of Filipino seafarer deployments.
Data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency showed there were only 387,072 sea-based workers deployed in 2017, down by almost 65,000 from 442,820 deployments in 2016.
“You look at these figures and think of what it really means”•that there are 64,748 seafarers who used to have jobs but no longer. That’s tens of thousands of families whose livelihood are at risk. This is alarming,” said UFS president Nelson Ramirez.
Ramirez, a seasoned seafarer himself, said industry analysts were predicting more of this drop over the next few years amid the slowdown in global shipping. “We can expect to see thousands more seafarers loitering in Kalaw, as we lose more principals and shipowners,” he said.
Ramirez likened the phenomenon to the dearth of employment opportunities experienced by Filipino registered nurses in 2016, amid the huge gap between demand and supply.
Ramirez said that in addition to the international economic turmoil and the swelling of unemployed maritime graduates each year, the proliferation of corrupt practices such as ambulance chasing severely aggravated the situation.
Ambulance chasing is a case where a complainant seeks compensation based on fictitious or frivolous claims of injury, disappointing and disheartening foreign shipowners from continuing to hire Filipino seafarers.
Compensation claims are determined by arbitrators of the National Labor Relations Commission or National Conciliation and Mediation Board both under the Department of Labor and Employment.
Claims decided in favor of the complainant are immediately settled after judgment; refusing to pay means that shipowners and/or manning agencies’ financial accounts can be garnished. It also leaves little or no recourse for recovering the amount paid to the complaining party even though in some cases, the arbitrator’s judgment may be overturned by the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court.
Claims can be awarded as much as $250,000 depending on the injury. However, the seafarer rarely gets to enjoy the award, as ambulance chasers always find a way to grab the lion’s share of the money.
Ramirez, who also sits as an NCMB arbiter, said ambulance chasing was hurting the maritime industry. As a union leader, he has spent the last two decades in advocating for reforms that will make it more difficult for ambulance chasers to exploit seafarers and manning agencies alike.
