Proposed amendments to the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 (Republic Act No.8042) which would effectively diminish seafarers’ rights by limiting their freedom of choice and imposing new requirements have hurdled the bicameral committee in the Congress. The final draft is out. This is yet another illustration of how the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Sadly, the various manning groups and seafarers’ unions helped in the paving by not voicing their dissent early on.

The Senate bill seeking to revise RA8042 was filed in May by seven senators (including presidential aspirant Manuel Villar Jr) who presumably took a cue from the House proponents. The Filipino Association for Mariners’ Employment reportedly knew of the lawmakers’ moves as early as February. Yet, it was only last month that the Joint Maritime Group (JMG) composed of FAME and five other organisations decided to seriously tackle the issue.

Even the unions were eerily silent. Capt Gregorio Oca, leader of the ITF-affiliated Associated Marine Officers’ and Seamen’s Union of the Philippines (AMOSUP) is said to have blown his top after being informed by his lieutenants that the solons had come up with the final draft document. The old man, apparently, had not been previously told of what was going on. Whether the AMOSUP and the JMG can still turn the tide at this point remains to be seen. We personally have our doubts. As one analyst put it, the JMG chaps who are now trying to create some noise are ‘too late the heroes.’

Be that as it may, the JMG did well to explain in its 25th November letter to Senator Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada, a co-author of the Senate bill, how the proposed changes would in reality work to the detriment of seafarers. Under the new law, for instance, all overseas Filipino workers would be required to undergo medical examinations or skills training only at designated clinics or training centres. The purported aim is to curb the common practice of collecting excessive fees.

Good intentions, though, can be out of sync with reality. The JMG had to remind Senator Estrada that foreign shipowners usually pick which local entities are to service their crewmen. The revised Act, it suggested, should stipulate that the total cost of medical check-ups and training shall be shouldered by the employers. The JMG also urged that seafarers be exempt from the proposed compulsory local insurance as the need is already addressed by the Government’s standard overseas employment contract and by the P&I clubs. Unfortunately, neither the JMG nor any of the unions has said outright what is fundamentally wrong with the RA8042 amendments.

It is the lumping together of sea-based and land-based workers. Even Ferdinand Marcos and his labour minister, the late Blas Ople, saw the wisdom and necessity of making a distinction between the two groups. Thus, the dictator created a National Seaman’s Board and an Overseas Employment Development Board for land workers just before he launched in 1974 his massive labour export programme.

True, the sea-land distinction was watered down when the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration came into being in 1982. But the POEA bureacrats and the maritime community continue to accept the fact that seafarers need to be treated as a separate class of workers. This is all in keeping with the International Labour Organization regime in which seafarers are covered by one convention and those working on shore, by another.

The new reincarnation of RA8042 goes against the grain of Philippine tradition vis-avis the administration of seafarers. It puts the country at risk of violating or being perceived to violate the Recruitment and Placement of Seafarers Convention of 1996 and the still-to-be-enforced Maritime Labour Convention of 2006 – both of which enjoin ILO member-states to ensure that no fees for recruitment are borne directly or indirectly by the seafarer save for the cost of some items (national statutory medical examination, certificates, personal travel document and national seafarer’s book). Lastly, it tells a lot about where the world’s top crew-supplying nation is going. ~Barista Uno