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FILIPINO seamen continue to ply dangerous waters because they see
the world for “free”—albeit with all the woes—and the wages
beat those back home.
“It’s a high-paying job,” says one
merchant marine. “Who wouldn’t want to receive the kind of
salary we have?”
A mess man, the lowest rank, receives around
$800 a month (P37,600 at the exchange rate of P47 to $1) plus
overtime. Officers may get as much as $8,000 a month, or 15 times
higher than the wage of many Philippine company executives.
Remittances from seafarers make up 15 percent of
the $14.5 billion sent home by Filipino workers abroad. In 2007, the
RP sailors’ remittances totaled around $2.2 billion. Employers are
required to send a part of a sailor’s salary back home.
The sailors’ paycheck remains largely
untouched because of free board and lodging; they spend big time
only during port calls.
In the first nine months of 2008, according to
the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Filipino seafarers sent home $2.393
billion—or 43.35-percent more than the $1.669 billion they sent in
the same period in 2007.
By comparison, land-based Filipino workers
abroad sent $9.87 billion from January to September in 2008.
Since 1987, the Philippines has been the leading
supplier of seafarers in the international market, “making it the
manning capital of the world,” according to the Philippine
Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).
United Filipino Seafarers statistics show there
are close to 700,000 Filipino seafarers. In 2007, 266,553 Filipinos
were deployed in international passenger and cargo vessels.
They make up about 20 percent —or two out of
10—of the 1.2 million ship workers worldwide.
In a year, they account for around $3 billion of
the foreign remittances to the Philippines.
This is a quarter of the total remittances
contributed by all Filipino workers abroad, even though seafarers
only make up 3 percent of the 8.7 million Filipinos working and
living abroad.
The POEA gives most seafarers the “Able
Seaman” classification. There were 31,818 able seamen registered
last year, a little more than half of them employed in 17,355
positions.
Most of them work in passenger vessels, where
47,782 seafarers were employed in 2007. Some 42,357 worked in bulk
carriers and 31,983 labored in container ships.
For recent graduates of maritime schools,
competition for jobs is particularly fierce. Of the 25,000 ordinary
and able seamen who graduate annually, only 8,000 to 10,000 find a
job within a year.
Some 60,000 new students enroll in the
counry’s 89 maritime schools. Around 25,000 will complete the
three-year course. Most will remain as Ordinary Seaman and only
about 5,000 will return to maritime school after a period of
“on-the-job” training in order to proceed to the rank of Able
Seaman.
Still, the deployment of Filipino seafarers
reached 204,951 in 2007, from only 50,604 in 1984.
-- Camille Beatrice Bauzon
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