Jaw-dropping is the uncanny fact the "shape up or ship out" admonition against Filipino seafarers is an unheeded 16-year-old warning.

Such a fact emerged last week after various officials admitted that thousands of Filipino seafarers risk losing jobs aboard European Union-flagged ships unless government reaches and maintains international maritime standards on training this year.

How past administrations pulled off such an audacious stunt of putting seafarers at grave risk without raising outrage since 2006 remains an inexplicable mystery. Though some experts say previous administrations bought time using diplomacy.

Nonetheless, the present administration is frantically racing to save seafarers' jobs in the wake of warnings from the European Commission that the country risks a ban unless government complies with the 1978 International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers.

Basically, the STCW sets qualification standards for personnel on seagoing ships.

STCW is meant to ensure "a lateral standard of training is achieved across all countries in the world;" which in turn means any mariner working aboard any vessel crisscrossing international borders must have the STCW endorsement appropriate to his or her license level.

Any Filipino mariner applying for any merchant marine position, therefore, must have proper STCW endorsements.

Now, an STCW endorsement is usually obtained by specific coursework from maritime schools and/or onboard assessments that meet internationally agreed-upon safety standards and competency levels.

Herein lies the rub. Since 2006 EC says Filipino maritime schools repeatedly fail in the way these train and certify mariners, putting in doubt STCW endorsements.

Successive audits by the EU-backed European Maritime Safety Agency in 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2017 of these schools unearthed proof of serious deficiencies in the competency levels of Filipino mariners.

And, despite post-audit warnings, were still uncorrected. Pledged corrective measures from previous administrations like revisions in curricula, teaching methods of local maritime schools, and certification systems proved also ineffective.

Another EMSA audit in 2020 again found the same deficiencies, prompting the EC this year to issue a final warning to the government to fix the deficiencies or face a ban.

Commenting on the issue early this year, former Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. graphically said "all EU wants is the closure of inferior maritime schools, some owned by congressmen and others by government officials who wouldn't know academic requirement if (it) was shoved up their asses."

On a more sober note, however, the persistence of the deficiencies "indicates a fundamental weakness not only in the entire system of maritime education, but also in the capacity of government to monitor, evaluate, and upgrade the country's maritime educational institutions," says a prominent Filipino sociologist.

Specifically, EMSA's latest audit found 13 shortcomings and 23 grievances. Most of these pertain to the lack of training equipment in local maritime schools and inconsistencies in the teaching and assessments of the general seafarers' education system.

Surprisingly enough, European shipping companies accept substandard Filipino maritime schools as a fact of life.

Recently, a visiting European shipping company executive bluntly told Filipino maritime officials: "The schools never had to deliver — because we have accepted that it's substandard."

What he meant was that European shipping companies have set their own training programs — focusing particularly on basic seamanship skills — for new Filipino new hires. So much so that local maritime schools found no need to improve themselves.

How long these European companies will go spend and maintain such programs specifically for Filipinos is an open question.

As to why local maritime schools aren't taking the trouble of teaching basic seamanship skills, an industry source attributes this to the fact the local shipping industry haven't enough ships to take onboard maritime cadets for their on-the-job training.

Practical maritime training, however, can't be done away with.

Classroom lectures alone can't possibly allow Filipino maritime cadets have practical knowledge about ships and the sea which European ship owners obviously need and want.

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Email: neqjr@yahoo.com.ph