Anti-piracy training mandatory for seafarers for deployment overseas

Seafarers from all over the world, including the 270,000 to 300,000 Filipino marine officers and seamen now deployed aboard inter-ocean vessels carrying flags of various countries are now required to undergo ‘anti-piracy’ training,

before they are allowed to board the ships of their deployment.
Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Undersecretary for Special and Ocean Concerns and Jose S. Brillantes said this is a ‘mandatory’ requirement under the Manual of International Maritime Organization (IMO).
The proposal of the Associated Marine Officers and Seamen’s Union of the Philippines (AMOSUP) that Filipino seafarers by trained by experts from the Philippine Navy and the Philippine Coast Guard is very much welcomed and a healthy move, and in fact, ‘cost-saving’.
The proposal for the Navy and the PCG to train Filipino seafarers on anti-piracy was first made by AMOSUP through one of its top officials retired Navy chief Vice Admiral Eduardo Ma. R. Santos (then AMOSUP vice president, and now AMOSUP executive vice president) during a tripartite conference on anti-piracy in December 2009 and January 2010 at AMOSUP’s Seamen’s Center in Manila, attended by officials from the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE), ship owners’ and seafarers’ groups, and other stakeholders in the maritime industry, here and abroad Santos was banking on the competence and expertise of Philippine navy men and Coast Guard men who were actually trained on anti-piracy, anti-smuggling, anti-narcotics and other anti-crime operations at sea., stressing this would be less expensive than hiring foreign anti-piracy trainors.

Source: Manila Bulletin