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From time immemorial, the Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI),
Philippine-version, has been identified with two things. It is
either a fangless tiger or a board that almost always tilts to the
side of a negligent shipowner.
Nothing on the voluminous archives of the BMI
inquiries reveal sympathy and empathy for the victims of sea
tragedies. The anti-victim tilt is understandable. It is the scum of
the earth, the poor, the wretched that board the overloaded floating
coffins. They can perish at sea and no one—after the initial media
hysteria—will mourn their passing.
The owners of the shipping lines are rich,
powerful, politically connected. They have lawyers and political
sponsors, if they are not big political families themselves. The
past and present names of Philippine shipping giants, including the
responsible ones, are a collection of Philippine society’s Who’s
Who: Aboitiz, Escano, Madrigal, Chiongbian, Go, Ledesma, etc.
Manny Pangilinan of PLDT tried to gain a
foothold into shipping by acquiring the bankrupt Negros Navigation
from the family of Rep. Jules Ledesma. The venture is barely afloat.
Part of the huge Madrigal wealth that Jamby, the senator, is
contesting, has its origins in shipping.
The inquiries and recommendations of BMIs, past
and present, have a pattern. Ship tragedies, even those that kill
passengers by the thousands, are always “ acts of nature.”
Shipowners and operators, if they are cited at
all, are mostly given a slap on the wrists.
It is the shameless and almost criminal
pandering of past and present BMIs to the interest of shipowners and
operators that provides the ideal environment for the creation of
special admiralty courts. These are the courts that try maritime
cases.
England and the other First World countries with
long maritime traditions have these courts. Maritime justice is
rendered fairly and swiftly. In England, the courts always tend to
rule in favor of the victims, not the shipowners and operators, even
if this means a hemorrhage at the Lloyd’s of London, which insures
the ships, cargo and passengers.
If there is an ideal time and context to create
Philippine admiralty courts, it is now.
It is not only in maritime tragedies that the
response of the state is weak, anemic or inconsequential. Typhoon
Frank exposed the obvious: the state-sponsored crop insurance
program is almost nonexistent.
Ka Nellie Chavez, the representative of our
peasant group, said she will start looking into the operations,
programs and funding of the Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. (PCIC).
Her first question will be this: How much of the P5-billion damage
Typhoon Frank inflicted on crops, poultry and livestock is covered
by PCIC insurance?
Is PCIC into the serious business of insuring
crops, poultry and livestock? Or, is the insurance work a lot of
phantom transactions and crap? Is the PCIC backed by real funding?
Or, has it run out of funds? Ka Nellie said these questions have to
be answered.
The PCIC used to be very active during the
Marcos years. Backed by a solid financial muscle, it insured crops,
poultry and livestock on a massive scale. After calamities, farmers
that deserved crop insurance got crop insurance. There was not much
quibbling and temporizing on the payment of the claims.
The current low-profile operation of the PCIC,
this is the general suspicion of the peasantry, has nothing to do
with a sincere effort to just do its work outside of the media
limelight. It is because it has nothing to report. Coverage of
crops, poultry and livestock is marginal.
I even suspect that the PCIC has ran out of
funds. The grapevine says it has only P200 million in capital.
Ka Nellie hopes that her inquiries into the
operations of the PCIC will lead to policy reforms. The PCIC is a
very important GOCC (government-owned and -controlled corporation),
perhaps as important as the National Food Authority. Its mandate is
important and sensitive.
Ka Nellie should also probe deeper into the
leadership of the PCIC. Is the leadership anemic and clueless? A
vigorous and inspired leadership at the PCIC would not have allowed
the deterioration of the agency into its present state.
Typhoon Frank and its raw, ruthless fury have
unmasked terrible holes and voids in the state bureaucracy. We
should have admiralty courts instead of the toothless BMIs. We
should have a crop insurance program with funding and massive
coverage. Not a PCIC, which work is a lot of crap.
mvrong@yahoo.com
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