Manila: President Benigno Aquino III is expected to sign a law protecting seafarers that, among other provisions, places a limit on the percentage lawyers can get from indemnification claims.
Representative Jesulito Manalo of the seafarers’ partylist ANGKLA, an organisation working for the interests of Filipinos in local and global maritime industries, said the House of Representatives has adopted the Senate version of the proposed “Seafarers Protection Act.”
With the adoption of the Senate version of the bill, the measure could then be transmitted for approval by President Benigno Aquino III.
The bill’s focus is to ensure that seafarers who risk their lives at sea are not taken advantage of. It aims to protect Filipino seafarers’ labour claims arising from their illnesses, accidents, or in worst cases, even death, against unconscionable legal fees imposed and collected by unscrupulous individuals.
Manalo lamented that seafarers who are involved in accidents are sometimes being preyed upon by the very same lawyers who represent them in their legal claims.
“Seafarers working on-board international fleets are known to be awarded hefty compensation and benefit packages by reason that they risk to their own lives while working in the high seas. This situation then makes them an easy target for ambulance chasing, with legal practitioners having considerable interest in the monetary benefits that one may claim, and eventually be awarded,” Manalo explained.
Manalo said, often, lawyers charge as legal fees anywhere from 30 per cent to as much as 60 per cent of the awarded claims.
“The bill’s enactment into law is vital,” Manalo, the lone representative of the maritime sector in Congress, said.
“In order to seriously curb the unreasonable imposition of these fees, the bill imposes a cap on the total fees that lawyers or persons representing the seafarer may collect, to an amount not exceeding 10% per cent of the benefit awarded to the seafarer or his family,” Manalo pointed out.
A lawyer himself, Manalo said the law is needed because the current legislation is not enough to protect seafarers from such kinds of abuse.
“While the code of Professional Responsibility of Lawyers prohibits ambulance chasing, no statutory provision exists which totally, directly, and expressly prohibits this abominable practice in the enforcement of labour rights,” he said.
“There is a real sense of urgency to rectify the problem on ambulance chasing. Thus, to put teeth into the law, parties found in violation of the statute shall be meted a penalty of a fine of not less than P50,000 (Dh3,932) but not more than P100,000 (Dh7,863), or by imprisonment of one year but not more than two years, or both, at the discretion of the court.”
