By ALDWIN QUITASOL
www.nordis.net

Most of the times, many of our fellow Filipinos think that working abroad means finding greener pastures, fulfillment of promises of a good life and bright future. As job scarcity in the country hinders the Filipino work force to work here and instead choose to gamble and try their luck in other countries. This even if they hear a lot of stories about the fate of fellow Filipinos being victimized and abused by employers or falsely accused of crimes, they are jailed and then sentenced to die in the gallows, above suffering from unfair labor conditions and rights violations.

In Baguio just like elsewhere in the Philippines, a lot of graduating high school students are opting to enroll in maritime or seafaring courses. They like to be seamen as they heard that this job will bring them to many countries of the seven continents of the world. They were told that the salary of a seaman can make them rich here at home.

Acording to the port chaplain of the Migrante International affiliated Philippine Seafarer’s Organizing Ministries (PSOM) Pastor Reynaldo C. Lopez, the situation of seamen compared to the land based Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) is more prone to abuse and repression. If the OFWs working on land are being victimized by employers they have the option of running away immediately and seek refuge, the seamen cannot just jump into the sea and swim away to escape abuse.

The ship where the seaman is works would be just like a steel prison. He will stay there for years enduring long period of being separated from his family and friends.

Lopez described the work of a seaman as contractual or casual where it lasts barely a year. Even if the contract is 12 months, the actual work period is 8 months depending on the availability of the goods or products to be delivered and the destination. If the contract ends, it means that the seaman will have to wait for five months to apply or look for another contract.

The seaman’s big earning will be spent during the five months of being idle. The larger part will go to the daily needs to live and to the processing of necessary papers to get a new seafaring job.

They have no security of tenure. They also have no genuine unions to represent them. Here in the Philippines, three big maritime agencies control the so-called unions for seamen. The agencies owned by Oca, Mendoza and Tupaz families that practically dictate the union to where the seaman will be included.

Many cruising ships prefer more female employees and moreover selecting the pretty ones. According to Lopez, the women employees are prone to prostitution or some kind of slavery in the middle of the seas and it is hard to monitor them.

According to the data of PSOM, there is a rate of 5 seamen committing suicide in every week. This they said is due to extreme loneliness and other psychological factors. In a year, 20 % of those who commit suicide are Filipinos.

Here in the country, the government keeps on projecting that the OFWs are giving much to the country’s economy. But instead of looking out for them while getting their tax contributions, the officials keep mum of the real situation faced by fellow Filipinos abroad.

How can the Philippine government defend the rights and welfare of the OFWs who are bound to the high seas when it cannot even look after the Filipinos working on land?

In protecting the Filipino workers here and abroad, the present administration must have the political will to do so instead of collaborating with the big businesses and for their own profit. The problem is, there is none. # www.nordis.net