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IN
the wake of the unabated piracy on the Gulf of Aden that
resulted in the hostaging of Filipino seamen, Malacañang
advised Filipinos against boarding ships passing through
the waters off Somalia.
Somalian
pirates have abducted more than 100 Filipino seamen
since July.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said, however, that
there is no deployment ban yet against Somalia, although
this is now being studied by the Departments of Foreign
Affairs and of Labor and Employment.
“All we
can do is give out an advisory to be sure that whenever
they [Filipino seamen] travel from one place to another,
they will not take a merchant or a commercial vessel
passing through Somalian waters. That’s the most we can
do for the moment…we’ll send out an advisory,” he said.
He added
that pirates have been taking advantage of the seamen,
mostly Filipinos, by hijacking the vessels and taking
them hostage in exchange for ransom from their
employers.
“Mula
July lang, imagine 106 ang na-kidnap.
Pinagkakakitaan ang mga Filipino seafarers,
pinagkakakitaan sila because they have the
reputation of being very good crew men for merchant
vessels; second, because they are very good,
inaalagaan sila ng kanilang employers so tina-target
sila ng pirates,” he said.
The last
batch involves 17 Filipinos out of the 19 crew members
of the M/V Captain Stephanos that was hijacked over the
weekend.
Nine of
those who were kidnapped in August by Somali pirates
arrived in the country last week, and were welcomed at
the airport by Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban
Conejos, who said that it is difficult to ban seafarers
from certain countries because their travels in various
oceans of the world could not be effectively monitored.
Instead,
they were advised to keep out of the 200-nautical-mile
zone off the Somali coast and to try to travel in
convoys to discourage pirates from attacking them. |
