The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) welcomed the decision of the European Union (EU) to allow Filipino seafarers to continue to work on EU-flagged vessels.

“This is a huge victory for the country,” CHED Chairman Prospero De Vera III said in a statement on Monday, April 3. “Now, after so many years, we finally get a note that our compliance efforts are recognized by the EU,” he added.

After a rigorous review process, the EU decided to extend the recognition of the Philippines' seafarer training and certification system.

CHED noted that the decision by the European Commission (EC) to continue the recognition of the Philippines' compliance with the Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping (STCW) Convention will “avert job losses for roughly 50,000 Filipino seafarers.”

“EU’s assessment of the measures taken by the Philippines in relation to the findings of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) gained positive response, saying that Philippines’ measures demonstrated concrete progress and improvement regarding the compliance with the requirements of the STCW Convention,” De Vera explained.

Since 2006, the Philippines’ compliance with STCW standards has been raised by the EU and the EC had warned in 2021 it would withdraw its recognition of Filipino seafarers' certificates unless serious measures were taken by Philippine authorities.

CHED noted that from 2006 to 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2017, the country’s highest recorded shortcomings were 76.

“In 2020, we were able to reduce the findings to nine,” De Vera said.

De Vera noted that CHED, under his watch, has partnered with MARINA to “aggressively address the findings on the STCW compliance.”

Moreover, he noted that initiatives on curricular reforms, examination and assessment, shipboard training, and capacity-building training for CHED, MARINA, and Maritime HEIs were also undertaken.

“A five-year moratorium on the opening of new maritime programs was imposed to make sure the review of all maritime schools can be undertaken before we add new ones,” De Vera.

Meanwhile, De Vera lauded President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. for prioritizing the resolution of this issue by “tackling it in at least two cabinet meetings” and instructed CHED, MARINA, DoTR, and other agencies to work together to address all compliance issues.

De Vera noted that the President also went to Brussels last December to “discuss the issue of Filipino seafarers with European authorities.”

Related to this, De Vera thanked Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista and MARINA for “preparing the detailed compliance report with all the voluminous attachments so the EU can see that we are serious in answering the observations.”

De Vera said that the EU “lauded the Philippine authorities” --- including CHED --- for their “efforts to comply with the STCW requirements and stated the need to continue a steady improvement in the areas indicated in the EU Report.”

CHED also expressed readiness to work with MARINA and the maritime HEIs to “fully implement the needed reforms based on the areas identified by the EU in its letter to guarantee that our graduates continue to be hired in international vessels.”

De Vera noted that these reforms include areas in monitoring, supervision, and evaluation of training and assessment; examination and assessment of competence; program and course design and approval; availability and use of training facilities and simulators and; on-board training.