More Filipino seafarers are being abandoned at sea

In two to three days, this is going to be a dead vessel, Angel Brito remembers thinking. They were floating off the Sharjah coast in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the owner of his cargo ship had gone radio silent for six months. When the vessel dies, there wouldn’t be electricity and potable water. Already they were fishing for their meals.

This was October 2020, as the entire world grappled with the coronavirus pandemic. Because theirs was a cargo ship sailing since 2019 before the pandemic, they were less likely to be contaminated by the virus because of lesser exposure to the outside world. But they’d been abandoned by their owners.

Brito was a third engineer on that ship, and was 47 years old at the time. It turned out to be the end of his seafaring career — at least for the near future, because he came to contract a kidney disease that wasn’t eligible for a seafarer disability claim.

Brito’s ship was one of 85 abandoned ships that year, and it’s getting worse for Filipinos and all seafarers worldwide. There’s been a steady upward trend of abandoned ships in more than a decade and 2024 was the worst on record, with 312 ships getting abandoned, more than twice the number from 2023, according to the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).

A total of 3,133 seafarers called the ITF for help in 2024. Filipinos were the 4th most abandoned nationality in the same year with 273 abandoned seafarers. We have consistently been in the top 5 of most abandoned nationality in the last five years.

Seafarers are considered abandoned if any of the three situations are present, as defined by the 2006 Maritime Labour Convention.

• shipowners have not paid wages of the crew for at least two months
• shipowners have left the crew without necessary maintenance and support
• shipowners refuse to shoulder the cost of the seafarers’ repatriation to their home countries

Brito suffered all three. He has sailed through the world, and had escaped the peril of looting pirates once. Because they were repatriated before theirs became a dead vessel, he thought he had escaped danger again all at once.

But when he went through a medical test for his next job on a ship, doctors found a mass in his kidney that could become cancerous if not removed. Six months in lost wages left him financially crippled for the surgery. (A disability claim needs proof that the disease was contracted on board, which is hard for some seafarers like Brito who discover it while on break.)

“‘Yung sahod namin hindi pa nabibigay. Walang-wala na talaga kami (we have yet to get our salaries. We had nothing),” Brito told Rappler. The ITF’s seafarers’ trust funded his surgery.

NEW DANGER. Angel Brito gives an interview to Rappler at the Manila International Seafarers’ Center. Photo by Errol Almario/Rappler

Sea abandonment

Shipowners abandon their vessels because it would be cheaper to just cut their losses when they go bankrupt. Port authorities don’t want a floating ship off their coast, so often it’s the abandoned seafarers who are stuck there to answer for the ship.

Footage from a recent abandoned ship provided to Rappler shows rust and grime, making it an unlivable ship. Water coming out of the faucet is either muddy brown, or pee yellow. Vegetables are rotting in an unpowered refrigerator. The abandoned seafarers had no choice but to stick it out, until rescue comes.

Like Brito, they could not afford to send themselves home even if they were cleared to do so. In the UAE, Brito said they couldn’t easily get clearances to leave because port authorities wanted a replacement crew.

INHUMAN. Images from a recently abandoned ship show unlivable conditions. Courtesy of the ITF

“Paano naman kami papalitan? Eh wala na nga pambayad ng airfare. Airfare pa lang nga naming uuwi wala na eh hihingi pa ng kapalit. So ibig sabihin, wala na silang maibigay,” Brito said. (How will we get a replacement crew? They don’t even have funds for our airfare home. That means they have no funds to send a replacement crew.)

Seafaring is a transnational industry, which means different laws apply to different things, making it hard to resolve a problem as big as what is essentially a floating junk.

What has allowed abandonment to continue, according to the ITF, are what’s called flags of convenience (FOCs) or ships registered to a different country. Traditionally, shipowners register their vessel to their own country. But to skirt their country’s strict regulations — including on crew welfare — they register their ships to countries with more lax rules.

Flags of convenience are “the scourge of maritime,” said the ITF which has a long-running campaign against it. “Once a ship is registered under an FOC, many shipowners then recruit the cheapest labor they can find, pay minimal wages and cut costs by lowering standards of living and working conditions for the crew,” said the ITF.

It’s a jurisdictional nightmare, holding the seafarers hostage. Even if the flag authority wants to solve the problem, they can’t easily run after the owners who are covered by a different law. Arvin Peralta, ITF’s Philippine inspector, told Rappler that sometimes it’s also because flag authorities “have no dedication to find solutions.”

In 2024, 253 or 82% of the total 312 abandoned ships were flags of convenience.

ABANDONMENT. Illustration of how complicated the jurisdictions can be when a flag of convenience is abandoned.

‘Ugly truth’ of seafaring

Seafaring is an attractive job for Filipinos. They earn US dollars that they can never earn if they work in the Philippines. Engineers like Brito can earn from $2,000 to $3,000 a month (P116,000 to P174,000), which is the minimum wage scale as of 2024, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).

But it’s also the cost of loneliness, spending around 18 months at a time away from family — and from society in general. John Lyod “Jack” Restauro, also an engineer, describes ship work as a job with no light. Not only do they not see land, they also rarely see the sun.

“Nasa engine kami, nasa baba kami. ‘Pag labas mo, wala nang araw, parang wala ka ring nakikitang liwanag,” Restauro told Rappler. (We work in the engine, at the bottom of the ship. When you get out, the sun has set, like you don’t see light at all.)

Ideally, seafarers are covered by collective bargaining agreements (CBA) to protect their rights, such as making sure that overtime work is paid. But to have a CBA, they should be part of unions. As in any industry, joining a union comes with a lot of stigma.

NO LIGHT. John Lyod Restauro is a ship engineer.

Restauro is part of a union but he was not covered by a CBA when he joined a roll-on roll-off (RORO) ship in Fiji, which promised $2,000 per month. He was part of what ITF has found to be a scheme of duping as many as 20 Filipino seafarers into jobs on ships that will not pay, enabled by a notorious manning agency in the Philippines. This was in the middle of 2019 and things quickly turned for the worse.

“‘Yung $2,000 per month, naging $1,000. Tapos delayed na nang delayed. Tapos ang daming sabi na hindi pa raw nagbibigay ang principal. Pero ‘pag tinanong namin ang principal, nagbibigay naman daw sila every month. Doon na kami kinabahan, parang something wrong na,” said Restauro.

(The promised $2,000 per month became $1,000. And then it got delayed and delayed. They told us our principals have not sent our salaries yet. But when we asked our principals, they said they were sending every month. That’s when we got nervous, that something was wrong.)

Restauro was abandoned for a total of two years from 2019 until he was repatriated in September 2021. His abandonment coincided with the coronavirus lockdown which made it harder to book flights — not that he could afford to anyway.

Restauro is the eldest and acted as parent to his two younger siblings. That’s why he became a seafarer in the first place. It wasn’t his dream job, but he knew as a breadwinner that an overseas job was best.

When he was abandoned, he had to tell his siblings to stop schooling. He couldn’t send money home. Their neighbors even had to pick up some bills like electricity and water.

“Mabait siguro kaming tao (maybe we’re really good people),” Restauro told Rappler.

When Restauro took a shore leave in Fiji to report their abandonment to ITF inspectors, he and his group were barred from entering the ship again. He had played basketball with Filipinos on the island he’d met during his shore leaves. They took him in, and gave him odd jobs.

Restauro became a plumber, mechanic, and a cleaner. He even took a gig opening coconuts. He got free food by hanging around Filipino food stalls. “‘Pag punta ko doon, may Pinoy na bibili. Makikita ako, ‘uy Jack, nandiyan ka pala. Kuha ka din, kuha kain.’ Wala na, busog na ako. Tapos kapag mga hapon, kapag hindi naubos ‘yung tinda, binibigay sa akin,” said Restauro.

(When I go there and a Filipino buys food, they’d see me and say, ‘Jack, choose for yourself also, choose your food.’ Then I’d be full. By afternoon, if they don’t sell everything, they’d give me the leftovers.)

The promise of a good salary is almost offset by the gravity of labor violations that a seafarer can suffer on the ship.

“The scandalous rise in reported cases of seafarer abandonment exposes the ugly truth of an industry which has relied on unchecked exploitative practices and lack of global regulation for far too long,” said ITF secretary general Stephen Cotton.

What’s the punishment?

Peralta, ITF’s inspector, was a ship engineer. Being a seafarer allows him to navigate difficult situations as an inspector. He would board ships, especially FOCs that are docked, to check if labor conditions were well — and not all the time is he welcomed with open doors.

Seafarers are also not quick to open up about their problems. They’re scared that it will cost them their next contract. The inspector job requires knowing the ins and outs of seafaring, and the language of sailors. Peralta said he has to get through to abandoned seafarers quickly because if the unpaid wages exceed four months, insurance may not be able to cover past it.

So far, what advocates see as a deterrent is a database of the ILO and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that lists the abandoned vessels — like a wall of shame. The hope is that the companies shape up or they never get business again because of their bad reputation.

“For me, it’s effective to make the governments, the flag states, the port states, take actions and to add pressure to the owner for their obligation to the vessel and to the crew,” said Peralta.

Pressure is what they hope for because of the transnational character of the problem, and weaknesses of international law in enforcing rules on entities covered by domestic laws. Peralta said one solution is to make sure that seafarers are covered by CBAs that have the same nationality as the shipowner. This would allow for easier enforcement when they are abandoned.

Restauro and Brito said the seafarers’ governments must be quick in financing the repatriation. “Nandiyan naman ‘yung katibayan na in-abandon na kami (there’s enough evidence we were indeed abandoned),” said Brito.

“‘Yung government natin, naghihintay sa pera ng agency. What if ‘yung agency na ‘yun hindi magbibigay?…Ibig sabihin, for life ka nang naghihintay,” said Restauro. (Our government waits for the money from agencies. What if the agency doesn’t remit? That means you’ll have to wait for life.)

Brito, now 51, has retired. His ordeal has made him realize that time with family (he has one teenager with his wife) is precious. Restauro is only 31 years old, newly-married, and a new father to twins. His siblings are just about to finish college. He had just recouped the debt incurred from abandonment.

He’s not turning away from the sea anytime soon. He just wishes he is never again abandoned.

NEW FATHER. John Lyod Restauro is newly-married and a new father to twins. Courtesy of John Lyod Restauro

– Rappler.com

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