12 stranded Filipino seafarers in Greece helpless

INQUIRER.net
Posted date: November 30, 2009

MANILA, Philippines—The 12 Filipino seafarers stranded in Greece since July this year have not been paid their agreed salary, and live on dole-outs and the minimal allowance of food and water given to them by their employer.

“Our situation here is so difficult. Right now, our food is good enough only for three days and the drinking water is rusty,” said third engineer Jesus Hantic in a text message to INQUIRER.net.

He was reacting to a story that came out in the website which said that he and his fellow Filipino seafarers are about to be repatriated soon.

“We are in a floating prison,” Hantic said describing their situation on MV Aetea Sierra.

“We didn’t know that we would be going home because nobody has told us so,” he added.

The 11 others with him are: second officer Jose Cardenas, second engineer Gardner Monte, able-bodied seamen Constancio Cubay, Florvic Labaco, and GilJhun Moneva; Julius Cesar Flores; oilers Ricleand Camino and Wilfredo Ranara; second cook Primo Fernandico; and merchant marines Erolin Choing and Jerry Laride.

“We all want to go home. We demand our salaries and our back pay. We are now deep in debt,” he said.

Hantic also belied the statement of the Department of Foreign Affairs that Philippine embassy personnel in Greece have visited them and have looked after their welfare.

“We were visited by the embassy only once, by Attorney (George) Eduvala of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration,” Hantic said.

“Only Akbayan and Kasapi are helping us here,” Hantic said.

Ellene Sana, executive director of Center for Migrant Advocacy who connected INQUIRER.net to the seafarers, said the seafarers could not simply leave because not only are their travel documents with their employer, but also leaving the ship with its $11-million worth of cargo (20,000 of steel coil) would mean they have abandoned their jobs.

In a related development, Akbayan party-list Representative Walden Bello, who was in Greece for the Global Forum on Migration and Development, asked the Philippine embassy in Greece to “act decisively to rescue” the stranded seamen.

“Good publicity will not hide the fact that they have been sitting on this case for a long time at the expense of our stranded countrymen,” Bello said in a statement.

“The overarching issue that the embassy and the Department of Foreign Affairs have to address is this long-standing issue of foreign employers abusing Filipino workers, depriving our seafarers of adequate pay, decent working conditions, and the benefits and privileges accorded to them by law and through international treaties,” he added.