THE SAD STATE OF STANDARDS IN THE DOMESTIC SHIPPING INDUSTRY

THE SAD STATE OF STANDARDS IN THE DOMESTIC SHIPPING INDUSTRY

- Can Maritime Education Play a Role?

Pelibert Sanchez
PMMA-MMET

“Many Filipino officers and ratings onboard foreign vessels have demonstrated their competence. This earned for them the respect of their foreign peers and even the foreign shipowners.”
“Among seafarers worldwide, ((UFS President)Ramirez) revealed that Filipinos have the most training, assessment, and certification.”
Aside from those prescribed under the Standard of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping of, as amended in 1995, there are a host of other requirements imposed only on Filipino seafarers.
There are more than 500,000 qualified and licensed Filipino seafarers, but many of them opt to wait for the opportunity to board foreign vessels. “
– Tinig ng Marino (July-August, 2003)

Apparently, our maritime educational and training systems are already saturated. There is no more room for expansion. The Filipino mariner is, on basis of educational and training background, is among most trained, highly skilled, most suitably qualified in this genre.
Well, perhaps, this is true, as what our foreign principals say. It means that the Filipino seafarer excels – in the foreign shipping industry. The Norwegians, the Japanese, Danes and a host of other ship-owning nationals can attest to this. This is true, at least in the foreign arena.
But look at it in the domestic shipping lanes and it is not hard to realize that this is not the reality but rather, a 180-degree deviation from the expected. Who are these people behind the helms of our domestic fleets? Aren’t these the same sought-out-for Filipino?



The Varying Professions: A Study of Parallelism
The Filipino seafarer is no different from the countless nurses, doctors, engineers, who opts for greener pastures away from home. Who gets to employ the topnotch nurses, doctors and engineers? Is it a publicly-run hospital in the country, or a medical center in San Diego? Or Brisbane? Or Ontario? This is a nightmare which is happening - and continuing. Working abroad may be a dream come true for our country-men who make it “there.” A never ending nightmare for our ever declining industries.
The foreign-flag vessels are kept spotless, efficient, free from unwanted detentions, accidents and near-misses because of their Filipino complements. This is a drama happening 24/7 all the while as our domestic vessels are sinking, spilling oil and killing people at a rate far beyond average world statistics.

The Filipino Cadet: His Orientation
Statistics show that the bulk of our seafarers have humble beginnings who were raised below the average social and financial classes, if not on the poverty line, particularly those coming from the provinces. High school kids are encouraged to pursue a maritime career for it is the faster way to financial freedom, not only for himself but for his family as well. And what better way to attain that, than to be employed by the foreign principals who have the capacity of releasing fat pay-checks.

The Learning Institution: The Goals
A maritime school, college or university would steer a course which could possibly lead to maximum employment potentials of their student after campus education. And not simply employment, but employment onboard a foreign principal. What can be a nobler goal than that?
Hence, maritime education focuses mostly on international shipping standards.
Objective: Employ their alumna as future Masters and Chief Engineers.
Not as shipmanagers. But as ship operators. World-class Master Mariners and Chief Engineers. The pride of the Filipino manning industry.

While this is true, we must also look at the drawbacks of this system. At a closer study, we see the downside of our existing baccalaureate programs. We fail to address the needs of our own domestic market. We fail to address the areas of shipmanagement. We fail to produce competent marine quality and safety assurance managers. We fail to produce people with the necessary technical competency to man key positions in the critical areas of maritime safety. We fail to produce qualified, professional, technical personnel for key roles in MARINA, the COAST GUARD, even CHED and TESDA, for that matter (Marine Divisions).

How does the Present Educational Structure fare in Addressing the Problem?

Quoting part of a study by Veronica Esposo Ramirez: “Philippine Education: Benchmarking with Best APEC (Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hongkong and the California Maritime Academy) Practices”, we see a comparative study on how does our educational structure reflect the nature of employment of their graduates. In the study, one field of study highlighted was the Curricula offered in local institutions versus APEC institutions. Most of our local institutions offer courses limited to the baccalureate courses leading to either BS degree in Marine Engineering and BS Marine Transportation, or both, and a few offer Masters Degree in Marine and Nautical Science, Shipping Business Management and in Maritime Education. APEC Institutions, on the other hand, have more diversified course programmes, both in the baccalaureate, post-graduate and doctorate programs, and what is striking is that in many of these APEC institutions, the scope is not merely focused in producing competent merchant marine deck and engine officers but also in programs leading to degrees in Naval Architecture, Ocean, Maritime and Offshore Systems and Shipping Technology and Management; APEC masteral and doctorate programmes are as varied as well. Options are in place for pursuing doctorate degrees in Philosophy in Marine Management and Doctoral Course in Maritime and Transportation Systems Science, or masters degrees of Philosophy / MBA in Marine Management, Higher Degree in Shipping Management Studies and Masters in Maritime Science.


ANALYSIS

While it is true and our pride that we, as a seafaring nation, produces competent merchant mariners recognized worldwide, we must not neglect the fact that we also have to address other maritime fields, in order for us to be recognized as a truly relevant maritime country, not simply in terms of foreign-vessel manning competence. We must look into our own backyards and face the grim reality that our very own vessels are ill-equipped, under-surveyed, incompetently manned. Our ports are substandard, in terms of facilities, in the aspects of operations, safety and security. We must realize that in order to regulate our own maritime and shipping industry, we need competent technical people behind the agencies responsible for their regulation. WE NEED COMPETENT MARITIME ADMINISTRATORS!

And we must start training people for these positions now.
This was one paper prepared by myself as solicited by “Reveille” supposedly for one of its previous editions which unfortunately, came past the deadlines for printing

CAPT BERT SANCHEZ
PMMA GS (MMET)