THE Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) said on Tuesday no Filipino seaman has lost a job or missed a deployment because of the ransomware attack that crippled its seafarer documentation system.
Marina said it has issued more than 500 temporary certifications and granted document extensions to those with immediate departures.
The agency said the certifications, issued since August 15, serve as interim proof of a seafarer’s credentials while its Seafarer’s Identity Document (SID) and Seafarer’s Record Book (SRB) System remains down.
The documents are verifiable by Port State authorities, it said.
The certifications are ‘very temporary,’ the Marina said, and actual SIDs will be released through the seafarers’ respective manning agencies once the system has been restored.
The agency said all expedite applications have been granted certifications on the same day of the applicant’s appointment.
The Marina pegged the 500-plus certifications against an estimated 890,000 Filipino seamen certified as meeting international standards, or roughly 0.06 percent of the seafaring population-a comparison that measures the interim documents against the entire certified workforce rather than against the number of applicants with pending transactions during the outage.
The Marina said it met with 50 licensed manning agencies (LMAs) to address deployment concerns directly and to ensure that affected seafarers receive assistance.
Marina Administrator Sonia Malaluan appealed to all manning agencies to give seamen correct information and to report immediately to the agency any problem encountered in the use of the issued certifications.
Seamen with pending appointments for the issuance or renewal of their SRB or SID may be granted an extension of their Seafarer’s Identification and Record Books (SIRBs) that are nearing expiration or have already expired, provided they have an immediate departure to board a vessel.
Qualified seafarers must personally visit their selected processing center and present a request letter from the employing company; a confirmed airline electronic ticket; an approved Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) contract, a notarized company contract, or a Certificate of Employment; and a confirmed online appointment for the SRB or SID application.
The SID and SRB System has been offline since August 14, when the Marina suspended nationwide processing of the two documents until further notice. Both are mandatory credentials for Filipino seamen seeking employment aboard ocean-going vessels.
The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), through its Cybersecurity Bureau-National Computer Emergency Response Team (CSB-NCERT), earlier confirmed that a ransomware incident was behind the shutdown.
The incident was reported to the NCERT on August 13.
Currently, Marina is rebuilding the affected database and server environment, while forensic investigation and validation of the affected infrastructure continues.
The NCERT said it is still determining the full extent of the compromise.