THE STCW Convention adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the specialized agency of the United Nations dedicated to the maritime sector, prescribes the minimum standards in the training, certification and watchkeeping of seafarers. The convention reflects the commitment of signatory states to promote safety of life and property at sea and the protection of the marine environment through the establishment of international standards on the aforementioned subjects for uniform and harmonized application to all seafarers deployed on international ships. Signatory states therefore commit to carry out the obligations stipulated in the convention primarily through the transposition of the provisions and requirements therein provided into their respective domestic laws and regulations.
The convention works on the premise that through the implementation of the convention standards, seafarers can achieve the level of skills and competence to safely navigate ships in international waters. As in most IMO conventions, member states are given the latitude to determine how best to comply with the convention according to the circumstances obtaining in the country. These include maturity of the legislative system, the level of maritime, infrastructure and resources, and the institutional and human resource capacities, among others, for as long as the minimum requirements of maritime safety and security, and environment protection protocols are clearly achieved. Corollary to their treaty obligations, member states are permitted to verify and validate compliance with the convention through the conduct of audits and/or port state checks both considered as part of enhancing cooperation among member states and as supplementary to compliance monitoring activities.
As a flag state, a member state that employs seafarers from another member state may conduct an audit of the latter to verify faithful adherence to the STCW convention. It is from this standpoint that the European Maritime Safety Authority (EMSA) conducted the STCW audit of the Philippines. The EMSA audit operates as the exercise of flag state check on behalf of the European Union (EU) member states, many of which are employing Filipino crew on their flag ships. Upon the other hand, a port state may conduct control procedures on foreign-flagged ships, calling at its port to ensure that the crew are competent and certificated according to convention standards. In this context, EU member states perform port state inspections of foreign-flagged ships visiting EU ports in the same manner that the Philippine Coast Guard exercises control procedures over foreign-flagged ships that call on Philippine ports. The IMO, for its part, put up a “White List” as an attestation of a member state’s compliance with the STCW convention. A member state is white listed after the submission of proof of compliance (e.g. laws and procedures, to name a few) and the conduct of an IMO audit. The IMO Mandatory Member State Audit (Imsas) is also one mechanism instituted to monitor compliance with IMO conventions.
The Philippines became party to the STCW convention in May 1984. As a member of the convention, the Philippines introduced the needed policy and legislative adjustments to be able to give full and effective implementation of the convention as demanded of member states. In the course of time, EMSA audits were conducted in the Philippines starting 2006, which revealed certain deficiencies in the country’s implementation of the STCW Convention. At the time of the audit in 2006, the principal regulatory agency in charge of STCW implementation was the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) through the Maritime Training Center (MTC). The Philippine Regulation Commission (PRC) was the agency overseeing the certification process through the conduct of licensure examinations for merchant marine officers. For seafarers who are categorized as ratings and non-baccalaureate holders, it was the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) that had the mandate to develop technical-vocational education and training (TVET) system and overseeing the training and certification of its graduates/finishers.
Impressed with the conclusion that the inability to address the deficiencies in the EMSA audits having subsisted for more than 10 years due to the fragmented regulatory oversight over the STCW requirements, Congress enacted Republic Act (RA) 10635 in 2014, which designated the Department of Transportation (DOTr) through the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) as the single maritime administration for the STCW convention assigning to it certain functions pertaining to maritime training, education, examination and certification. The European Commission, through the series of EMSA audits, still expressed serious concern on the inability of the country to address the nonconformities and observations cited in the audits, and went as far as indicating possible withdrawal of recognition of Filipino seafarers’ certificates. The EU plan, if implemented, would have serious repercussions to the Philippines considering the Filipino seafarers’ significant contribution to the country’s economy.
It was also at that time when the Philippines was crafting the domestic legislation that will implement the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC 2006), the treaty adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) that deals with the rights of seafarers. One question that surfaced during the congressional deliberations on the bills that will implement MLC 2006 was whether cadets who are undergoing onboard training (OBT) are considered seafarers. Surprisingly, as congressional action on the MLC 2006 implementation progressed, maritime education, training, and certification cropped up as part of the draft bill despite the strong objection of maritime stakeholders including those from the maritime higher education institutions and the domestic shipping sectors. The stakeholders’ objection was anchored on the fact that RA 10635 is the primary legislation on the STCW convention, therefore introduction of new policies affecting the Philippine implementation of the convention should be considered holistically as to integrate these with the existing provisions of that law, and not as an accessory topic to a law on seafarers’ rights.
What started as arguments during the congressional hearings as to whether a cadet (a maritime student in fact) is a seafarer as to be entitled to the rights of one who is employed onboard snowballed into the bills that tackles both seafarers’ rights (on MLC 2006) and maritime education and training (STCW Convention). In 2024, the consolidated bills on the rights of seafarers was enacted as RA 12021. In addition, the law also transferred the jurisdiction over higher maritime education from the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) to Marina. Until now, there is no plain and transparent elucidation on why maritime education, which covers non-seafarers, was included in the law covering seafarers.
