 Marino:
History of the Filipino Seamen
(This is the 30th in a series of essays on the
history of the seafaring profession.)
By ROLI G. TALAMPAS
Regional origin of Filipino seafarers
FROM NSB’s registry it is possible to trace the regional
origin of our seamen. The largest group come from Region IV or Southern
Tagalog but this is largely due to the fact that Metro Manila is in Region
IV. It is very probable that many of these seamen originated from other
regions but had migrated to Manila recently in search for jobs.
The NSB registry also revealed that a large number of
seamen came from the Western Visayan Region (Region VI). They numbered
17,523 or about 21 percent of all registered seamen. It shows that the
region also accounts for a high proportion of ship officers. Some 28 percent
of all deck officers come from the region. It is remarkable that over one
out of every four qualified ship officers come from the Western Visayan
Region. Equally remarkable is the fact that over one out of four Western
Visayan seamen are officers.
Luzon accounts for 60 percent of all seamen, the whole
Visayan region for 35 percent, and only 5 percent is accounted for by Mindanao.
In Luzon, the Tagalogs greatly outnumber the Ilocanos and Bicolanos. In
the Visayas, the Western provinces of Iloilo, Negros Occiental, Capiz,
Antique and Aklan supply more seamen than all the rest of the Visayan provinces.
The seafaring people of Mindanao do not appear to have even a proportionate
representation in the seamen registry.
Educational Attainment
Except for certain technical functions, the job of a seaman
does not really require much formal education. Most of what he needs to
learn can be learned on the job or once he is on board a ship. This is
particularly true in the Philippines because there are no maritime schools
that have adequate equipment or vessels for training students.
The registration forms of the National Seamen Board provide
information on the highest educational attainment of the seamen applicant.
We have tapped this information for this study. Each seaman is counted
based on his highest educational attainment. Unfortunately, the actual
number of years of schooling could not be tapped because of non-uniformity
of the responses.
We probably have the best educated maritime force in the
whole world if college degrees are used as the basis for comparison. Almost
one out of every three registered seamen has a college degree. Another
15.6 percent reached the college level but were unable to complete their
studies. Practically everyone completed elementary school and went
on to high school, vocational school or both. Over half of the seamen (53.6
percent) completed high school and among them, nine out of 10 went to college.
It is therefore appropriate to say that our stock of high
level manpower, In comparison to the rest of the population, they
are much better educated. The national average, for example, for those
persons who reached college is only about 8 percent of the total employed.
Many never went beyond elementary school (76.9 percent).
We would expect the level of educational attainment of
officers to be higher than those of ordinary crewmen. A degree in nautical
engineering is now required of those aspiring to become ship officers.
Deck officers are the highest in rank and they are also the ones with the
highest proportion of college graduates. Engine officers were not significantly
better educated as a group than ordinary crewmen but this is probably because
the measure used is college education. Many of these engine officers completed
vocational courses instead of going for academic degrees. The same is obviously
true also of steward officers among whom only 18.8 percent completed college.
(To be continued) |
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FEATURES
Educate to excel, compete
It happened the other week in
our Stella Maris Seafarers’ Center
By Jack Walsh, MM
AOS Chaplain, Port of Davao
MARINO: HISTORY OF FILIPINO SEAMEN
By Roli G. Talampas
Regional origin of Filipino seafarers
What people say about the First
National Seafarers Convention...
YOUR FAMILY DOCTOR
By Dr. Carlitos N. Orola, MD-CFP
Prostate cancer
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Tel. No.: 4290702 |
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