Coast Guard: Virtually no maritime mishaps in 2010

MANILA, Philippines - The low number of typhoons and the continued vigilance contributed to the almost nil cases of major maritime incidents this year, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) reported yesterday.

PCG commandant Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo assessed that at the end of year 2010, there was “virtually zero maritime accidents, with no major accidents.”

Tamayo attributed the improved turnout to the lower number of typhoons that visited the country this year.

Normally, there are about 20 typhoons visiting the country every year, but the number was cut to half in 2010 with the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) recording only 11 entering the country’s area of responsibility.

“The much reduced number of maritime incidents this year is largely attributed to the reduced number of storms or weather disturbances,” said Admiral Tamayo.

The agency and its personnel, numbering only 6,000, were able to take a break this year because of the low incidents.

There had been countless of times, over the years, when the PCG took center stage in the conduct of its months-long search and rescue operations either to assist passengers of a vessel in distress, locate missing passengers and crew, plug the source of an oil leak and contain the oil spill, and make sure that there is no overloading of passengers and cargo and that there are no contraband items.

“In the process, some 9,577 lives were saved during Search and Rescue (SAR) and disaster response operations this year,” Tamayo said, that the Coast Guard have improved on the number of lives saved because the country have improved the culture of safety and life saving.

“For example a vessel conks out, we are immediately informed and we issues a Notice to Mariners (Notam) to alert the ships passing in the area to render assistance. We are more concentrated in the number of lives saved,” he said.

The Admiral said they have also developed a notifying and recall system for fishermen during severe weather condition. There are fishermen who go out into the sea for several days unaware of a coming storm thus, some of them end up missing or dead.

In terms of the communication capability, the PCG have more timely broadcast and dissemination of maritime safety information and Notam, including weather bulletins through the Navigational Telex (Navtex) and the PCG website.

According to the PCG Scoreboard, for year 2010 there were 582 maritime incidents reported; 597 SAR missions performed; 9,577 lives saved and provided assistance to 750,506 people.

They also recovered 240 dead bodies and assisted 602 vessels.

In terms of monitoring marine pollution, they recorded and responded to 15 incidents of oil spill and two incidents of chemical spill.

They also helped in the river clean up efforts of the government and made 224 coastal/river clean up and removed 1,932.8 tons of garbage that were placed inside 467 sacks.

But of all the accomplishment this year, Admiral Tamayo regarded the passage of Republic Act 9993 or the PCG Law of 2009 last Feb. 12 as the agency’s biggest success. The maritime agency lobbied for its passage for the last 12 years, believing that the new law would help in the clear definition of its functions.

The PCG was re-established as a distinct uniformed armed service attached to the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC).

It strengthened the PCG’s authority in the performance of its five core functions namely: maritime safety, maritime search and rescue, marine environmental protection, maritime law enforcement and maritime security.

One of the benefits of the new law is that the boarding and inspections activities being done by the PCG would no longer be limited to mere inspections prior to departure of merchant ships.

They are now only fine-tuning the law’s Implementing the Rules and Regulations (IRR).