Pinoy seafarers hostages surge to 120, gov’t helpless

As the number of Filipino seamen being held hostage in Somalia has swelled to 120, the Philippine government remains clueless on how to provide protection to the thousands of Filipino seafarers sailing through the dangerous waters of Africa.

Undeterred by a US military operation that rescued an American ship captain over the weekend, pirates seized anew another group of 22 Filipinos on board Greek vessel MV Irene EM off the Gulf of Aden in Somalia last April 14. This is the ninth hijacking in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean since the start of the month.

The Philippine government said that as a policy, it will not negotiate nor pay ransom to the kidnappers. Negotiations with the pirates are usually left to the ship owners, who pay huge amounts to ransom off their crew.

“What the government is doing right now is to continue to monitor the negotiations being done by the manning agencies with the pirates in Somalia. At the moment there are no planned or no contemplated action as strong being done by other countries as what we have read in the papers like what the US and French governments have done to rescue their citizens,” said Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.

“We will just continue with the present action of actively looking at the plight of our Filipino seamen and we hope that in our own little way, we will be able to contribute to hastening the recovery of the seamen,” he added.

Ermita said Malacañang is poised to recommend the enforcement of travel ban for Filipino seamen in Somalia.

But the Department of Foreign Affairs said banning Filipino seamen from certain risky regions would be extremely difficult due to the sailors’ rapid mobility. Moreover, the government can not impose restrictions on the movement of the seafarers as this would violate their contracts with their manning agencies.

Somalia has no functioning central government.

The hostage-taking spree in Somali waters have dragged on in the last couple of years, involving dozens of passing foreign vessels with hundreds of seafarers on board.

A maritime workers group has expressed dismay over Manila’s inaction to secure the release of all Filipino hostages in Somalia and prevent their abduction.–Michaela P. del Callar, Daily Tribune