“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out,” wrote the great British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell. Finding out is precisely what we’ve been doing since we started the blog in August 2009. However, the maritime industry, and not least the manning and training sector, is so full of ironies and contradictions that the simple question of “why?” could be quite vexing at times. Here’s a list of ten things that continue to perplex and even bewilder us and perhaps some of our readers as well:
1. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) expects seafarers and the shipping community to comply with the Standards of Training, Certification & Watchkeeping (STCW) Convention. So why doesn’t it make copies of the Convention freely available in the internet as is being done by the International Labour Organisation in the case of all ILO treaties? As things stand, distribution of the STCW Convention and accompanying Code remains restricted as the document is copyrighted to the IMO and peddling it has become a lucrative trade.
2. In its 2010 report on the Philippines’ maritime education, training and certification system, the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) said in effect that the country was not STCW-compliant. What does this make of the IMO’s so-called “white list” of STCW-compliant member states, which includes the Philippines?
3. Has the STCW killed the desire of seafarers to learn, both because of the amount of training involved and the cost of it? (we raised the question on LinkedIn but no one has been able to give a satisfactory answer based on empirical evidence).
4. Why do maritime executives bother to attend international maritime conferences even if they deal with the same topics, follow the same stale format and recycle the same speakers featured last year?
6. Why hasn’t the Somali piracy problem been licked in spite of the vast allied naval resources mobilised against the pirates, BMP4 (Best Management Practices), anti-piracy training and the proliferation of private maritime security outfits?
7. The good folks at IMO Headquarters in London speak of “orchestrating the piracy response.” But who leads the anti-piracy orchestra?
8. Despite ever tighter international safety regulations, huge advances in marine technology and the worldwide orgy of seafarer training, why do seemingly stupid accidents (e.g., Costa Concordia) still happen?
9. Why is there still plenty of racial discrimination and cultural prejudice in the maritime industry when shipping by its very nature should be bringing all nations together?
10. And finally, a question for Filipino manning executives and maritime bureaucrats to ponder: What constitutes a maritime nation?
~Barista Uno
