MODERN SLAVETRADE

Pinoy sailors send home record $2.5 billion in 9 months. The cash sent home by overseas Filipino sailors rose by $108 million or 4.51 percent to a new record of $2.501 billion in the nine months to September this year, from $2.393 billion over the same period in 2008, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines reported Tuesday.

TUCP secretary-general and former Senator Ernesto Herrera attributed the nonstop rise in remittances from sea-based migrant Filipino workers to increased enlistment by shipowners in Europe and Asia.

"A growing number of European and Asian shipping firms are disbanding their multinational crews, and replacing them wholesale with all-Filipino personnel that are younger and more able," said Herrera, former chairman of the Senate committee on labor, employment and human resources development.

"Foreign employers find Filipino sailors quick learners, and easier to train compared to other nationals. This may be due to their superior instruction here, apart from their ability to understand English," Herrera said in a statement.

Herrera, meanwhile, renewed TUCP's plea for the International Maritime Organization and shipowners to aggressively repel piracy and protect sailors. At least 71 Filipino sailors are still being held by pirates off Somalia.

According to the Department of Labor and Employment, some 229,000 Filipino sailors are on board merchant shipping vessels around the world at any given time.

From January to September this year, remittances from Filipino sailors based in Norway soared by 110 percent to $229.551 million from $109.079 million over the same nine-month period in 2008.

Remittances from Filipino sailors based in Japan were also up 57 percent to $222.505 million from $141.886 million.

The other fast-growing sources of remittances from Filipino sailors were the United Kingdom, up 122 percent to $192.373; Germany, up 47 percent to $175.067 million; Singapore, up 60 percent to $107.945 million; Greece, up 67 percent to $93.446 million; Cyprus, up 23 percent to $46.390 million;

The Netherlands, up 114 percent to $41.281 million; Denmark, up 182 percent to $28.864 million; Oman, up 24 percent to $24.948 million; Hong Kong, up 33 percent to $24.870 million; and Sweden, up 126 percent to $24.223 million.

The double to triple-digit increases more than offset the 24 percent drop in remittances from Filipino sailors based in the U.S., to $1.216 billion from $1.595 billion.

The cash sent home by sailors accounted for 20 percent of the aggregate remittances from all migrant Filipino workers in the nine-month period.

Migrant Filipino workers wired home a total of $12.789 billion in the nine months to September this year, up $516.62 million or 4.21 percent from the $12.273 billion they remitted in the same period in 2008, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

All the foreign hard currency sent as remittance home by worker from the Philippines is channelled through the system of the Philippine government first before given to the families in local currency. Therefore the labour abroad - if maid or mercenary - from the governmental perspective needs to be pushed as hard possible, which safeguards unscrupulous manning agencies from being prosecuted for their abusive practices and abused workers hardly find any assistance or help at their foreign missions. In Syria it is specifically bad, where Filipinas after running away from their employers, because they cannot stand the working conditions "under their masters" any longer then are sued and even arrested until they pay a "disengagement fee" - often several thousand dollars. The benefit of foreign currency generation for the Philippine government is also the reason why the governmental orders to not let Filipinos sail into piracy-prone areas are neglected and were never enforced.

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