Shipowners thank Marcos | The Freeman

CEBU, Philippines — The members of the Philippine Coastwise Shipping Association, Inc. (PCS) expressed their gratitude to President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. for listening to them and not signing the Magna Carta of Filipino Seafarers Bill, which caused the House of Representatives and the Senate to withdraw the enrolled bill for further review.

The House of Representatives cited jurisdiction for withdrawing the bill, but the group said that the more important issue with the said bill is the application of the provisions of Maritime Labor Convention of 2006 (MLC 2006) and the Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers Convention (STCW Convention) for international seafarers to the domestic shipping industry.

“We respectfully submit that the application of MLC 2006 and the STCW Convention to domestic shipping will cause the collapse of the domestic shipping industry and eventually kill the seafaring profession,” the group said.

The bill seeks to implement MLC 2006 which apply to international trade vessels and Filipino seafarers aboard foreign ships overseas. The group said that the application of MLC 2006 provisions is harmful to the domestic shipping industry as it requires specific criteria for crew accommodations, quarters, and recreation facilities which could not be complied with by the members of the association who are operators of small-and medium-sized ships.

In fact, several traditional maritime countries such as Norway, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Greece, and Australia are not applying the provisions of the MLC 2006 to their vessels with domestic routes due to their incompatibility with and unreasonable application to their domestic shipping industry.

These countries have adopted separate policies for ships that navigate exclusively in their inland and territorial waters with policies varying from MLC 2006.

“As far as we know, no other country implements this MLC 2006 to their domestic fleet. The provisions of the Magna Carta which more often than not refers to the provisions of MLC 2006, which when applied to domestic shipping will cause shipowners to spend for the reconfiguration of the existing