DMW: Recovery of remains of 2 Pinoy seafarers from Houthi-attacked ship still ongoing --By GISELLE OMBAY, GMA Integrated News

Philippine authorities are still working on getting hold of the remains of the two Filipino seafarers killed in a missile attack by the rebel group Houthi almost a month since the incident happened, the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) said Thursday. “Ongoing ‘yung recovery nung dalawang tripulante natin on board the True Confidence. We are working very, very closely with the licensed manning agency, with the salvors,” DMW officer-in-charge Hans Cacdac said in a media briefing. (The recovery of the remains of the two crew members on board the True Confidence is ongoing.) The missile attack, which the Houthis claimed responsibility for, killed three seafarers onboard the Greek-owned ship True Confidence while traversing the Gulf of Aden on March 6. Among those who died were two Filipino seafarers, while two other Filipino crewmen were severely injured. All the 13 surviving Filipino crew members were already repatriated back to the Philippines. True Confidence, meanwhile, was abandoned with the bodies after being set ablaze in the attack. On March 11, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega said the ship was towed to a port in Oman where the salvage operations would take place. Cacdac refused to give further information about the retrieval operations for the remains of those who perished in the attack. “Pasensya na [apologies], I just cannot disclose further details on this [because] we don’t want to disclose anything with respect to locations, details, and who are involved. Let’s leave it at that,” he said. Cacdac said the families of the Filipino seafarers who died are being updated from time to time. “Rest assured, the families are being handled through this process. For that matter, we just had a call with the families, and they are constantly updated virtually and face to face,” he added. The Houthis have launched a campaign of attacks on vessels in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes since November in solidarity with the Palestinians during Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza. With this, the DMW said last month that the Maritime Industry Tripartite Council (MITC) had recommended the status of the Southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden be declared as “warlike zones” for seafarers. Last week, the DMW issued guidelines for licensed manning agencies to observe should Filipino seafarers be assigned on ships that would ply high-risk and conflict areas, including the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and surrounding areas/waters.—AOL, GMA Integrated News

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Russia captures town after 2 years of Ukrainian resistance --- Reuters

Russian forces now control 98.5% of Luhansk, 60% of Donetsk MOSCOW: Russian troops on Wednesday took charge of the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a bastion that had resisted intense attacks since Russia launched its full-scale assault in 2022. The advance of Moscow's forces, which control just under a fifth of Ukraine, has underlined Russia's vast superiority in men and materiel as Ukraine pleads for more weapons from the Western allies that have been supporting it. Ukraine's eastern military command said it had ordered a pullback from the hilltop coal mining town to avoid encirclement by Russian troops and "preserve personnel and military equipment". The Russian defense ministry did not mention Vuhledar in its daily battlefield report. Russian Telegram channels, however, published video of troops waving the Russian tricolor flag over shattered buildings. The town, which had a population of over 14,000 before the war, has been devastated, with Soviet-era
Read more

UP Diliman Professors Share Scientists’ Procurement Struggles at Senate Hearing

By Harvey Sapigao Senate hearing of the revised procurement law (Photo credit: Senate of the Philippines) College of Science (CS) Dean Giovanni Tapang held up a little white device as he finished his presentation. “This is a ₱150,000 component,” he described. “Isa lang gumagawa nito sa buong mundo, pero ang hirap pilitin sila na magregister sa PhilGEPS,” he continued, referring to the requirement that foreign companies must first register to the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) before they can sell products to local scientists. Marine Science Institute (MSI) Deputy Director Dr. Irene Rodriguez explained that the small device is a resin that filters metals in water. “May budget tayo,” she said, “pero ang problema ko ay ‘yung resin na ito.” This and other bottlenecks brought about by the procurement law, or the Government Procurement Reform Act (RA 9184), slow down research and development in the country. UPD leaders were invited to the Senate he
Read more

Vietnam condemns China's 'brutal behavior' in fisher attack ---- Agence France-Presse

HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam's foreign ministry condemned on Wednesday China's "brutal behavior" during a violent attack on Vietnamese fishers in the disputed South China Sea. The 10 fishermen were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars' worth of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands -- an archipelago in the resource-rich waterway claimed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei. Vietnam "resolutely protests the brutal behavior of Chinese law enforcement forces against Vietnamese fishermen and fishing vessels operating in the Hoang Sa archipelago of Vietnam", foreign ministry spokesperson Vietnam Pham Thu Hang said in a statement, using the Vietnamese term for the Paracel Islands. "The above actions of Chinese law enforcement forces seriously violated Vietnam's sovereignty" over the archipelago, the statement said. Four of the Vietnamese crew were taken to hospital on Monday
Read more