"While the pandemic impacted Filipinos sailing on cruise ships, the cargo sector continued to operate all throughout," shared Mr. Borromeo. "A feat which the Philippines can be very proud of. Remittances even in 2021 already reached 6.5 billion USD, up 3% from the previous year. And by 2021 we have already reached the pre-pandemic level of remittances from the sea-based sector."

Addressing the attendees, Mr. Borromeo stated that ensuring quality and effective maritime education and training is the foremost of the industry's challenges. "If we want to continue to drive the future of the maritime industry, we must prepare for a future that will be driven by significantly more automation in technology and digitization. The country's education system needs to then quickly adjust to a STEAMdriven program (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math)."

Transforming largely manual processes into digital processes, consistent with a future that will be driven by technology, and learning from the last two years under a pandemic, he adds that there is an urgent need to drive greater digitization of the entire process of documentation and licensing of maritime professionals to enable them to readily be deployed globally on short notice.

Lastly, he emphasized that employment and contractual obligations should never be one-sided. "They must recognize the value given by the tonnage providers: crewing and ship management service providers and the seafarers themselves, and the tonnage enablers: the ship owners, which are partners of equal interest."