Around 400,000 Filipino Seafarers at risk of losing jobs due to corruption Posted by: Agent Tinig on Dec 02, 2014 Corruption in the NLRC and NCMB reaches a new high with the recent Villas case. An NCMB panel decided to award seafarer 2nd engineer Villas USD275,000 or nearly PHP12,500,000 for having lost a small portion of his finger tip! The claimant is saying that he is permanently disabled and deserves the full compensation per the governing CBA. While the CBA sets the award for 100% disability at $250k, the grading scale only gives a 60% disability grading if one loses an entire hand! Ignoring this fact, the NCMB Arbitrators upheld the claim of 100% permanent disability. While it is easy to point the finger (no pun intended) at the claimant, the real villains are the ambulance chasing lawyers and the labor arbiters or arbitrators who are supposed to act impartially. In fact, the claimants themselves are also victims as some report that up to 60-70% of the awards are paid out to lawyers for “legal fees”. The fallout. Corruption in the NLRC and NCMB is costing the Philippines thousands of seafaring jobs. The NLRC and NCMB are two arbitrary bodies set up under the DOLE to help claimants and employers find amicable solutions to disputes. However, loopholes in the law are allowing dishonest lawyers and labor arbiters or arbitrators to effectively steal millions of U.S. dollars from foreign employers without any accountability for their actions. The NLRC and NCMB are able to execute judgments before waiting for appeals to be heard and decided by the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court. This means that money can be forcibly garnished from employer bank accounts immediately, and when the Court of appeals overturns the wrongful decisions, the money is long gone and will never be recovered by the employers. The fact that cases are not decided on merit, and that there is no recourse for employers, is causing ship owners to take action by removing Filipino crew from their ships and replacing them with Indians, Indonesians, and Burmese crew. This latest case of brazen disregard for the law takes fraud to a new level, and hard working Filipino seafarers are the ones paying the ultimate price. This particular ship owner who is the latest victim in the Villas case, has already been hit with several bogus decisions over the past year. This has prompted them to already remove Filipino seafarers from more than 20vessels, costing loss of employment for more than 250 Filipino crew. Given this recent decision, we can expect the remaining 6 vessels to follow. In the end, more than 500 men will have lost their jobs. This landmark case may likely be the tipping point to prompt more ship owners to pull Filipinos from their ships in favor of other nationalities. Without taking action, we are giving away our market share to competing nations. These positions are not likely to return. Today the Philippines supplies more than 30% of the worlds seafarers. At 385,000, they comprise less than 4% of the 10,000,000 OFWs. In recorded remittances, however, they pump nearly $5.5 Billion into the Philippine economy every year, more than 25% of the overall OFW remittance which are projected at more the $20 Billion each year. This is part of the Philippine economy that we can ill afford to lose. Unfortunately, nothing seems to be standing in the way of the few who enrich themselves at the expense of the very people they are claiming to defend. Hypocrisy at its finest. - See more at: unitedfilipinoseafarers.ph/around-400000-filip…/…
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 08:32:37 +0000
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