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Philippines considering ban on sailor deployment
Over one hundred Filipino crewmen are currently being held hostage by Somali pirates dirtbags. It is entirely reasonable for Philippine authorities to consider the wisdom of continuing to send their civilians into that dangerous passage. It is also an entirely predictable consequence of allowing global shipping to be attacked on a constant basis. Score another notch for the global jihad.
With at least a hundred Filipino seamen still held captive by Somali pirates, Malacañang said on Wednesday it will study a temporary ban on their deployment to foreign flag vessels plying pirate-infested areas.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita in his weekly news briefing said the Department of Labor and Employment and the Department of Foreign Affairs will be asked to study the “advisability” of such a ban. He said that based on a DFA report, 100 Filipino seafarers spread among seven ships are still captives of Somali pirates, who in the last two or three days have again seized three more merchant vessels—and some of the crew of these newly-captured ships are Filipinos. Ermita added that a Greek ship with 22 crewmembers was hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden on April 14, but it remains to be known how many Filipinos are onboard.

“It’s getting to be very alarming in the sense that there are already 100 such Filipino seamen still under custody, and so we will ask the DFA and the DOLE for their specific recommendations on making an official pronouncement announcing that measure if that becomes very necessary at this moment.” Ermita added “there’s no foolproof action that we can take to really prevent” Filipino sailors from getting employed in such ships.

For this reason, he said, the government has directed the DOLE “to ensure that there is contact with the local manning agencies and discourage them from bringing in Filipino seamen that will be plying the route in the Gulf of Aden and in the area where these hijackings or kidnappings are happening.”

He said the Philippines is not contemplating moves similar to what the US and French governments had done to help their kidnapped citizens.

Instead, it will monitor negotiations being done by the manning agencies and ship owners with the kidnappers since “our experience has been that we have not had any casualty from among those kidnapped by the Somali pirates.” So far, he said, “there have been a lot of successes in the negotiations being done by the manning agencies and the ship owners. You can see that the motive really other than just gaining mileage through media is ransom. And the manning agencies as well as the ship owners have been willing to pay,” he said.

Ermita said, however, the Philippines continues to observe an official policy of not paying ransom as “it only encourages the kidnappers,” which is “the fact as far as the Somali kidnappers are concerned.” He added: “Of course the government will support whatever action the UN will take in order to address the problem.”
Take note of the following statistic:

The Philippines is the biggest source of maritime manpower in the world .
Posted by: Seafarious 2009-04-16
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=267747