FILIPINO seafarers can continue to work on EU-flagged vessels after the European Union extended the recognition of the Philippines’ seafarer training and certification system, the Commission on Higher Education said.

The European Commission’s decision to continue recognizing Philippines’ compliance with the Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping Convention will save the jobs of 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 gained positive response. It said that the country’s measures demonstrated concrete progress and improvement on the compliance with the requirements of the STCW Convention.

Commission on Higher Education Chairman Prospero De Vera 3rd said that this development became possible because President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. instructed CHED, MARINA, DoTR and other agencies to work together to address all compliance issues. The President also went to Brussels last December to discuss the issue of Filipino seafarers with European authorities.

“CHED under my watch, has partnered with MARINA to aggressively address the findings on the STCW compliance. Initiatives on curricular reforms, examination and assessment, ship board training, and capacity-building training for CHED, MARINA and Maritime HEIs were 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 said, referring to the Maritime Industry Authority.

“We thank 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 added.

The CHED chairman said that his agency will continue to work with MARINA and maritime education institutions to implement the needed reforms identified by the EU.

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.