Three Filipino Seamen Rewarded for Blowing Whistle on Ocean Polluters

July 9, 2009

Three Filipino seamen received from the United States Government today rewards ranging from $30,000 to $90,000 each for cooperating in the prosecution of a shipping company and its two officers accused of polluting ocean waters.

The rewards were made under a United States law that encourages witnesses to come forward and report pollution violations.

The seamen received the rewards during a ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Manila this afternoon.  For security reasons, however, the seamen’s names were not released to the media.

The seamen served as 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 U.S. 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 U.S. international laws aimed at protecting the world’s oceans. Two of the cooperating Filipino seamen secretly photographed the illegal hose connection and provided the photographs to U.S. Coast Guard investigators.

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.