SENATE TO PROBE PRC ORDER TO REQUIRE SEAFARERS TO TAKE UP ADDT'L TRAINING COURSE

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Nene" Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today called for a Senate inquiry into the questionable move of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) requiring seafarers to take an additional course on the management level course (MLC) - before they can qualify for employment as marine officers.

Pimentel sought the Senate probe after the PRC ignored the appeal of seafarers groups and maritime manning agencies to stop requiring seafarers to take up the MLC prior to the issuance of a certificate of competency for their employment in ocean-going vessels.

He said he found no justifiable reasons for prescribing this additional requirement which will cost each seaman P42,000 for marine deck course and P52,000 for engine course in school fee.

"The mandatory management level course, besides being an additional cost to seafarers, is allegedly a repetition of their bachelor's degree since most of the topics are already part of their four to five-year marine deck and marine engineering courses," Pimentel said.

Moreover, he said the mandatory management level course is not even one of the minimum requirements of the Standards of Training Certification and Watchkeeping Convention (STCW). Neither is it required by the foreign principle as a condition for employment, he added.

Pimentel said he was told that there is now a shortage of Maritime officers ready for deployment abroad as an offshoot of the additional imposition by the PRC through its board for marine officers.

He said it is unfair to slap this additional burden on the seafarers and it is certainly not a way to recognize and reward this huge group of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) for regularly remitting their dollar earnings to their families back home - the single biggest factor for strengthening the peso which has stabilized the national economy.

The groups that have called for the scrapping of the additional training course include the Crewing Managers Association of the Philippines, United Filipino Seafarers, Philippine Maritime Institute Alumni Association, Inc. and the Integrated Marine Deck and Engine Officers Association.

If the management level course is intended to upgrade the skills of seafarers but tends to duplicate the basic maritime courses, Pimentel said the complainants have a point in suggesting that it should be made optional, and not mandatory.

Pimentel said the Senate probe will look into the claim of the seafarers and other stakeholders in the maritime manning industry that there was a strong lobby exerted by training centers with the PRC board of marine officers for the adoption of the MLC.

The complainants alleged that the training centers "obviously stand to gain at the expense of our seafarers in making the management level course mandatory with the PRC becoming a willing tool." -o0o-