DOLE plans to establish seafarer recruiting center
MANILA – To put an end to the controversy hounding the Luneta Seafarers’ Welfare Foundation Inc. (LUSWELF), Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz has announced the agency is mulling the establishment of a similar center but under the control and operation of the Overseas Workers and Welfare Administration (OWWA).
While admitting that LUSWELF has proven itself quite a boon to seafarers looking for job or brand-new ship postings, Baldoz said the proposed government- operated seamen center would be more convenient as it would be far bigger, better, and accessible to seafarers.
“If we will be allowed to set up this facility, seafarers would no longer be seen disorganized and milling around, looking for work,” she said.
As a bonus, the DOLE chief said that all government agencies, tasked to regulate the function and deployment of Filipino seafarers, will have their mini-offices in the proposed center, similar to LUSWELF’s concept.
The OWWA is the ideal government agency to handle the operations of the proposed recruitment center as its primary objective is to ensure the safe and fruitful deployment of all Filipino workers abroad, she said.
Baldoz said she decided to offer this compromise to the manning agencies and seamen organizations as majority of the latter are demanding that LUSWELF’s operations in T.M. Kalaw be allowed to continue despite criticisms coming from other manning industry stakeholders.
She clarified that the proposal is still to gain momentum as the DOLE is still studying the positives and negatives of the government operating its own seamen recruitment center.
Baldoz said the recruitment will be more centralized and efficient as OWWA will be handling the center’s day-to-day operations and potentially earning for the government additional revenues through taxes and other fees levied on participating manning agencies.
She added that an air of permanence and stability will be given to the proposed facility once it is known that the government will be operating it.
“Our seafarers will no longer be exposed to the weather and criminal elements once this facility is commissioned,” the DOLE chief stressed.
Baldoz also clarified that LUSWELF will not be put out of business, as feared by some of its supporters, but merely revert back to its original function envisioned by its founders.
LUSWELF was earlier faulted for exceeding its original purpose by becoming an unofficial seamen recruitment center despite being envisioned only as a recreation and information center for out-of-work seamen by Associated Marine Officers and Seamen’s Union chief Capt. Gregorio Oca during its conception in 2007.
The recruitment center tagged was placed on LUSWELF following the installation of 100 manning booths near the center.
Critics claimed that the presence of manning booth system near LUSWELF created a “slave market atmosphere” as services of competent and reputable seamen could be had by the highest bidder.
Baldoz said that while the manning agencies that used to operate in LUSWELF have a special recruitment agency (SRA) to hire seamen for their respective shipping principals, it does not give them authority to do their business in LUSWELF.
LUSWELF president Don Ramon Bagatsing earlier said that closing down or limiting operations of the center will be a big blow to the country’s seafaring industry.
Independent maritime sources said that 60 percent of Filipino seafarers deployed abroad are recruited from LUSWELF.
A recent International Maritime Organization study revealed that around 300,000 Filipinos are among the 1.2- million strong crewmen manning the world’s merchant marine fleet.
“If they will close LUSWELF, our seafaring countrymen will have no place to stay while looking for new work. At the least, our sailors will have to go to Makati and Quezon City to rent a small apartment to stay-in while looking for work, not like in the center where they have the luxury to search for berths near the vicinity of their dormitories,” Bagatsing added.
LUSWELF, in defending the existence of the “booth manning system” in T.M. Kalaw, said that it is merely providing shelter, one-stop-shop facilities, dormitories, other related services for the seafarers’ need and commitment to uplift the dignity of every mariner.*
