The Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) has secured 4 million euros for technical assistance aimed at improving the education and training of Filipino seafarers.
MARINA and the European Commission (EC) will include international labor best practices in the scope of the European Maritime Safety Agency‘s 4 million euros technical assistance.
Samuel Batalla, MARINA executive director, said Philippine maritime officials will discuss with their EC counterparts in Brussels this week the scope of work and how the aid would be utilized.
This after Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista announced that the EC will provide technical assistance for the training of Filipino seafarers to continue to meet the requirements of the Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) Convention.
Batalla said the technical assistance, which will be fully financed by the EU member states and supervised by the EC Directorate General (DG) for Mobility and Transport and DG for International Partnerships, will cover the implementation of the STCW Convention.
The technical assistance will also include aspects of the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) 2006, specifically in areas of recruitment and placement of Filipino seafarers, Batalla added.
He said the inclusion of MLC 2006 is to expand the program, which aims not only to ensure compliance with the STCW Convention but also to share best practices relating to other international conventions concerning seafaring and the maritime industry in general.
He also said the EC will evaluate the country’s state of play on the implementation of the corrective actions addressing the grievances noted by the commission before the start of the program of technical assistance in 2024, giving it an opportunity to identify the specific assistance needed by the Philippines.
To effectively carry out the technical assistance in a pragmatic manner, EC experts will be assisted by independent technical experts with no conflict of interest in the country, noted Batalla. – Myla Iglesias
