Building on the blue economy The Manila Times – The Manila Times

Last January 28, I had the opportunity, on the invitation of the Foundation for National Interest (FNI) and the UP Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea (IMALOS), to participate as a panelist in the fifth Kwentong Mandaragat webinar series which focused on the Philippine Blue Economy: Opportunities and Challenges for Sustainable Marine Economic Development. The webinar centered on optimizing the benefits and opportunities offered by the archipelagic configuration of the country and at the same time identify measures to address the increasing threats to the sustainability of the marine ecosystem.

The problems affecting our maritime domain are varied as they are complex and which continue to escalate due to neglect by and apathy of those who are bestowed the task of protecting the maritime space and by those who either carry out their trade at sea or who exploit the countrys marine resources and bounty. Illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing or IUU which include the use of unsustainable fishing methods, discharge of harmful and noxious substances into the marine environment, marine litter, and other practices continue to exact severe damage to the seas and marine resources.

Still, it is reassuring some care to save and revive the health of the archipelagos waters; and for them there is no backtracking, only going forward in trying to nurse back an ailing marine environment. The FNI and the UP-IMALOS brought together subject matter experts who shared their respective agencies/organizations initiatives, plans, and programs aimed at promoting the blue economy concept, as an essential approach to an archipelago like the Philippines.

Once again, the widely-held perception about this archipelagos remarkable bias towards terrestrial-based national planning was articulated by the panelists. Could this explain why there are not many who go into marine-related professions? Alternatively, would the dearth of practitioners and experts on marine-related undertaking contributory to the diminishing advocacies towards sea-based national development planning?

Expanding the maritime human resource beyond seafaring

As a maritime nation, the Philippines may have overlooked, maybe unintentionally, one of its most important assets its maritime human resource. Who are they? Where are they? If we concede that the Philippines is a maritime nation then it follows that every Filipino should be considered as potentially belonging to the countrys maritime human resource.

The concept that seafarers are the only maritime professionals in this archipelago is misleading. Numerous marine-related professions, jobs, and livelihood are available, although seafaring appears to be most appealing to the young population. Not even naval architecture could come close to attracting an equal number of academic enrollees.

There is no need to publicize the seafaring career because attracting young students to join the merchant marine profession is prompted by following the footsteps of a seafarer in the family, sometimes even by neighbors who had it good as a shipboard crew. The dream of becoming a seafarer is rooted in the mind of the young due to their wide exposure to the many seafarers this country has produced.

How do we get the young Filipino attracted to marine-related careers other than in the merchant marine profession? There are close to a hundred maritime higher education institutions offering merchant marine education as compared to the few higher education academies with marine-science or oceanography or fisheries programs, mostly by State universities and government-run schools. The low enrolment rate for the non-seafaring programs hinders privately-operated schools from offering the same.

Maybe it is about time agencies tasked with the function of overseeing the marine-based economy including those with a specific mandate of developing a maritime human resource to seriously consider changing mindsets fixed on seafaring by launching a sustained program of informing the population of the opportunities offered by this maritime nation, of the critical need to fill marine-based jobs and undertaking.

For the Philippines to be truly a maritime nation requires developing Filipinos who think maritime!

Originally posted here:

Building on the blue economy The Manila Times - The Manila Times