Pinoy seamen get US government rewards

MANILA, Philippines – For blowing the whistle on ocean polluters, three Filipino seamen received from the United States government rewards ranging from $30,000 to $90,000.

The US embassy in Manila said the Filipino seamen were rewarded for cooperating in the prosecution of a shipping company and its two officers accused of polluting ocean waters.

The rewards were made under a US law that encourages witnesses to come forward and report pollution violations. The seafarers’ names were not released to the media for security reasons.

The seamen were witnesses against the GenMar Defiance, a ship owned by the Portugal-based General Maritime Management, and the ship’s two officers.  

A court trial in Texas in 2008 found the two ship 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. 

The trial also revealed that GenMar Defiance pumped waste oil overboard through a hose designed to bypass pollution controls and in violation of US international laws aimed at protecting the world’s oceans.

As a result of the Filipino seamen’s evidence and testimony, the shipping company was fined $1 million and placed on five years’ probation, and the two ship officers were sentenced to pay fines, confinement in half-way houses, and probation.

Twelve Filipino seamen also received last September a total of  $900,000 (P41.5 million) in check-cash rewards from the US government for helping prosecute ocean polluters involving the owners and operators of two ships that illegally dumped sludge oil and contaminated waste water into the ocean.