Filipino sailors to be trained in anti piracy

[trublue]

Anti-pirate training enforced

Filipino seafarers

FILIPINO seafarers will be required to have anti-piracy training before they are allowed to board oceangoing ships from the beginning of next year. FILIPINO seafarers will be required to have anti-piracy training before they are allowed to board oceangoing ships from the beginning of next year.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration said seafarers seeking certification will have to take the module, which is aligned with recently issued guidelines on ‘practical measures to avoid, deter or delay piracy attacks’.

The anti-piracy training is expected to last no more than a day and has to be conducted separately from the regular pre-departure orientation seminar.

Somali pirates have taken captive 68 Filipino seafarers on six ships in the past few months.

Labour secretary Marianito Roque recently met with shipmanagers and crewing agency leaders in Manila to discuss issues including counselling and financial assistance for the families of abducted seafarers.

[imsaltd]

Your average student on one of these mandatory courses will not want to be there, mainly because he will probably have to do the course in his short time off in between seagoing appointments.

You are in most cases asking someone with no previous security experience to attend a theory course and then go back to a multi million pound vessel and along with the SSO be a font of marsec knowledge (so the cheapskate ship owner can turn round to his underwriter and say that he has security trained personnel onboard).

Vessels today are lean manned and under commercial pressure. The SSO in most cases will be a first officer/Ch Eng, in a watch bill and with numerous other duties which usually detract from their security duties.
The same could be said for any seaman attending mandatory anti-piracy training.
THEY ARE SEAMEN NOT SECURITY OPERATIVES

Limited training, plans and procedures are all well and good but…….
Whats required are people with the knowledge and experience to implement those plans and procedures!

There is a long term roll in the Gulf of Aden and other hot spots but it is not for armed teams or private security companies who do the occasional maritime security job.
The work is for time served marsec professionals with a deep understanding and experience of the commercial maritime industry with STCW qualifications underpinned by marsec military service i.e. street cred with the mariners they are working with.

90% of the marsec plans, procedures and measures are already in place on vessels, it needs people with the skill set mentioned above to add the other 10% in implementation, mentoring and reassurance.
Be it the Gulf of Aden, Offshore W Africa or SEA there are certain locations were the SSOs knowledge should take precedence over other duties. This is not the case at present.

It is time for the maritime industry to recognise there are marsec professionals out there who can provide assistance to the Master and SSO in securing their vessel.
Marsec professionals should be recognised as an industry outsources in the same light as many other consultants working in the industry.

SEAMEN ARE NOT SECURITY OPERATIVES. Do the aviation industry send all cabin staff on mandatory security training in how to defend against and armed assault on their aircraft (they might teach the rudiments of dealing with difficult passengers) I know it’s an over simplification but NO they don’t. They engage aviation security specialists to carry out risk assessments and then mitigate against the threat, if required they engage professional air marshals!

John