Marina: 5 yrs to go before old sea vessels will be decommissioned

The Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) will allow old sea vessels aged 30 years and older five years more to operate before they are retired.

Lawyer Vicente Suazo Jr., Marina administrator, said that in the draft rules and regulations they are drawing up for the mandatory retirement of sea vessels more than 30 years old provided as the Domestic Shipping Development Act of 2004, they have set a five-year transition period for the old sea vessels.

Suazo said that Marina is now in the final stages of drawing up the guidelines. “(We are) in the final stages of creating the guidelines.  But definitely, we will give a transition period of about five years before the vessel is finally retired,” Suazo said. 

Marina has the legal mandate to draft the regulations to implement the Domestic Shipping Development Act of 2004 especially with regard to the retirement of sea vessels more than 30 years old to ensure safety in sea travel and modernize the shipping industry.

Suazo said that vessels already 30 years old will be given five years during which they are “to meet safety and seaworthy standards after which they will be decommissioned to ensure modernization of the fleet of vessels serving the Philippine archipelago.”        

Suazo said that the current thrust of Marina to upgrade the Philippine Maritime Industry was expected to “revive” the local shipbuilding industry which had suffered a decline as several shipbuilders had gone down to becoming just ship repair facilities. Suazo said that with shipping vessels getting their upgrade, ship repair and ship building entities will get more business.            

The Domestic Shipping Development Act of 2004 requires the Marina to “prepare and implement a mandatory vessel-retirement program for all un-classed vessels that fail to meet the classification standards of a government-recognized classification society.”

“All vessels which have attained the maximum vessel age as stipulated by Marina’s mandatory vessel-retirement program which do not carry a class certificate issued by a government-recognized classification society shall not be allowed to operate in the domestic trade and shall be automatically de-listed from the Philippine Registry,” the said law states.  – Rainier Allan Ronda