3 more Pinoy seamen rewarded for helping prosecute shipping company

MANILA, Philippines — Another group of Filipino seamen received financial rewards from the United States government on Thursday for helping in the prosecution of a shipping company accused of polluting ocean waters.

A statement by the US Embassy in Manila said three seamen, whose names were withheld for security reasons, received rewards ranging from $30,000 to $90,000.

According to the statement, the Filipino seamen testified against the GenMar Defiance, a ship owned by the Portugal-based General Maritime Management, and the ship’s two officers.

US prosecutors had accused the company and its two ship officers for violating maritime pollution laws by alleged pumping waste oil overboard through a hose designed to bypass pollution controls.

Last year, a court trial in the state of Texas found the two officers guilty of making false reports to the US Coast Guard and for failing to maintain an accurate Oil Record Book designed to prevent pollution of the world’s oceans.

Two of the cooperating Filipino seamen secretly photographed the illegal hose connection and provided the photographs to US Coast Guard investigators.

Said the statement, international and US law prohibit the discharge of ships’ waste oil without treatment by a device known as an Oil Water Separator. It also noted that the US requires that all of the waste oil be kept in tanks and recorded in the ship’s book for accounting during US Coast Guard inspections.

The court fined the shipping company $1 million and placed on five years’ probation, while the two ship officers were sentenced to pay fines, confinement in half-way houses, and probation.

In September 2008, 12 Filipino sailors also received rewards amounting to $900,000 or about P41.5 million in check and cash rewards from the US government for blowing the whistle on the owners and operators of two ships that illegally dumped sludge oil and contaminated waste-water into the ocean.

In January 0f 2008, the US Embassy also handed over rewards totaling $730,000 to eight Filipino seamen who helped prosecute their ship owner and officers for illegal waste dumping in American waters.

The embassy said the cash rewards were authorized by the US District Courts in San Juan, Puerto Rico and Jacksonville, Florida under a US government program to reward persons who have helped in the prosecution.

The rewards were in line with a US law that encourages witnesses to come forward and report maritime pollution violations. - GMANews.TV

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