The Saga of the Stranded Filipinos
January 28, 2005
Thirteen Filipino crew members have been holed up for more than a month now in a modest two-bedroom house in Carson City, Calif. — an upgrade from their previous quarters. They remain worried sick that their decision to cooperate with the U.S. government in a lawsuit against their ship’s owners will mean the end of maritime employment for them. The trial of the government’s suit is set to begin next month.
Their saga began when their ship, the Keterina — a Greek-owned, Malta-registered steel carrier — was boarded and inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard just off of Long Beach, Calif., in September of 2004.
Upon inspection, the Coast Guard found evidence of illegal oil dumping and at least 20 other violations. The ship was impounded and its three officers arrested. Of the 16 officers and crew, only the ship’s captain was not a Filipino.
The 13 crew members immediately cooperated with the Coast Guard and confirmed the illegal acts of the officers. They reported that they had not been paid for several months and had been ordered to throw garbage and oily wastes overboard. They said the chief engineer warned them that if anybody talked, “they’re dead.”
Violations included an unused oil/water separator, the presence of vermin and insects, faulty and illegal equipment, the lack of hot water, untreated water, and a broken air conditioner. Crew members also complained of poor food, stopped-up toilets, stockpiled human waste and a pervasive stinking smell.
After they were taken from the ship, the men were housed and fed under an agreement with the ship’s owners. After the company completed repairs on the ship, however, it moved the ship to another port with a new all-Filipino crew and stopped all payments for the former crew’s hotel and food expenses.
Three days before Thanksgiving, the Filipino crew members were evicted from the San Pedro Holiday Inn. As they were now “illegal aliens without work permits or any means of support,” the U.S. Marshals who evicted them immediately placed them in handcuffs and ankle chains and incarcerated them in the San Pedro immigration detention facility.
On Nov. 23, the crew members were brought to federal court in chains and thereafter released to a local Catholic priest, Henry Hernando, who took the men to the International Seafarers Center in Long Beach where they were billeted.
After weeks of depending on donations from religious, welfare and labor groups, and frustrated with the lack of money and stable living quarters, the Filipino crew members held a press conference.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles defended its actions in the Los Angeles Times, claiming it had incarcerated the men to “provide them with a place to stay.”
However, Philippine Consul General Marciano Paynor announced he was preparing a diplomatic protest about the treatment of the crew members, saying they were in America solely “because they are being subpoenaed by the U.S. government … as material witnesses.”
Paynor said the only explanation by the U.S. government is that U.S. Marshals do not distinguish between the accused and witnesses.
The Philippine Consulate then found the crew a two-bedroom house donated by a kindly Filipino American named Eden Yap, and U.S. immigration officials issued the men temporary work permits.
The consulate also asked for an investigation of the Manila-based crew hiring agency — Michael Mar Phils. Inc. — for allegedly withholding the crew members’ wages, paying them below-contract pay scales and kickbacks.
Although the crew members want to return to their families in the Philippines as soon as possible, it is not likely as the trial over the ship will not take place until February or March. And they will be the chief witnesses against the ship’s owners.
The crew members were informed that a U.S. Department of Justice anti-pollution program provides financial payments to whistle-blowers like them, with the payments taken from the fines levied against the vessel’s owners. In one recent case, cooperative witnesses got around $1.2 million.
They will need whatever they can get as the men fear that their days as seafaring crew members are over — that they will be blacklisted by all ship owners and operators for cooperating with the U.S. government.
Unfortunately, their humiliating experience of being paraded in court in shackles may also discourage others from cooperating with the U.S. government and testifying against their employers.
Rodel Rodis is an immigration lawyer and a columnist for the Philippine News. He is also an elected member of the San Francisco Community College Board.
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