Cokaliong Shipping wins 3 major Marina awards

CEBU, Philippines - Cokaliong Shipping Lines Inc. bagged three of nine awards in the regional category of the Marina Awards for Safe Travel, Excellence and Responsible Service (MASTERS).

This was bared yesterday by the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) citing the achievement of CSLI winning the vessel of the year, coastwise domestic shipping company of the year and the Master Mariner award for Region-7 that qualifies them for the national finals.

M/V Filipinas Cebu was named vessel of the year besting a field of about 1,600 ships according to Mardon Martin, the supervising maritime industry development specialist.

Chester C. Cokaliong, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer of CSLI, said that he is very happy with the recognition.

He told The FREEMAN that he did not even know that there were that many ships operating in the region.

CSLI also bested over 300 shipping companies for the coastwise domestic shipping company of the year award.

The winner of the Master Mariner of the year plum is Saviniano Fuderanan skipper of M/V Filipinas Cebu.

Cokaliong said that this is a very big honor for them since this is the first time that the Marina has initiated such recognition activity. He said that they are very grateful for the recognition, which proves that their company has succeeded in their aim to continually give excellent service to customers and maintain the high standards of their ships.

The regional awardees were nominated from March 16 to July 3 this year and were evaluated by the board of judges from each maritime regional office and the central office in Manila.

 Martin said that there were a lot of qualifications for the different categories, which Cokaliong Shipping Lines passed with flying colors.

For the Vessel of the Year award, safety records of the ships stating that the ship has not been involved in any major accident and has been well-maintained with minimal records of breakdown while operating was one of the top requirements along with the most notable achievement with regional and national significance and contribution to the country’s economy.

Cokaliong said that they believe that their performance in terms of maintaining the cleanliness of their ships contributed a great deal for the award, which has also been acknowledged by Marina in 2007 as the cleanest ship and by the Bureau of Quarantine in 2008.

According to Cokaliong, along with the company’s goal to further find means to upgrade their services to meet the demand of the community and to ensure quality service, they have also upgraded their engine monitoring system for M/V Filipinas, which system is a first of its kind in Cebu and in the Philippines in general. Cokaliong showed members of the media yesterday and the Marina representatives their newly installed state-of-the-art monitoring system from Japan which is worth P8 million gives them an advantage in their operations in the control room to shift from manual to automatic.

Galileo Mayola, the chief engineer of M/V Filipinas, further explained that the new system would help them have immediate readings if for example, there is a need to check one of their engines if it is heating up or needs more water or oil.

The M/V Filipinas Cebu travels from Cebu to Ilo-Ilo three times a week and to Palompon once a week with a capacity of 642 passengers.

Mardon said that Cokaliong shipping lines would be vying for the national category for the three awards that they won along with the other winners for region 7.

The other awardees were Roble Shipping for the Ferry Domestic Shipping Company, NIL for Overseas Shipping Company, Fortune Shipworks Inc. for Small and Medium Shipbuilder, Lusterio Boat Maker for the Boatbuilder award and the University of Cebu Maritime Education and Training Center for the Maritime Training Center award. — AJ de la Torre/NLQ