Featured image above shows the 34 trainees for MARINA’s MBST activity for men aspiring to become licensed-boatmen on boats plying the Barangay Caticlan to Boracay Island route. MARINA Region VI conducts the MBST activity to equip boatmen with knowledge on safety and how to response to incidents while traversing the sea to protect their passengers. (Photo: SDN)

Short link: https://wp.me/paaccn-XQi

BARANGAY CATICLAN, Malay, Aklan, March 25, 2026 (SDN) — For many years now, world famous Boracay Beach, its White sands gleaming in the summer sun, has been a magnet for Filipinos and foreigners, attracting all sorts of tourists, the backpackers, holiday vacationers, casual visitors, and the like.

International visitors come from various countries, from the cold Western cities to the hot tropical paradise and everything in between. All for life’s pleasures and good times, for, obviously, life’s good and, best of all, God’s Good!

Travelling, says American author Samuel Clemens, the one of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, more popularly known as Mark Twain, “erases bigotry”.

And when one travels, go on a journey, you need a mode of transportation, on air, inland, or seaborne. Not unlike when going to Boracay Island, many people’s dream destination. Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Middle Eastern, Western, African, Asian, etc.

Going to Boracay Island, you need a boat. Boats plying the route accommodate from 47 to 70 passengers, with three to five crew — pilot and helpers.

Jump-off point is Barangay Caticlan, at the Jetty Port here to the Jetty Port on Boracay Island, arguably two of the Philippines’ busiest seaports, and takes between 10 minutes and 20 minutes to cross, and vice versa.

Boats, no longer the banca types with “katigs”, the protruding bamboo polls serving like wings on either side to steady the vessel amidst churling big waves, are now plying the waterway, supposedly a more efficient and safer mode of transporting people to and fro. Those bancas, which charged around Php40 a passenger, are gone now, became obsolete, irrelevant, with the coming of the strongly made boats made of fiberglass and other materials designed with safety and comfort in mind. The stronger and more resilient fiberglass boats charge Php50 each passenger.

Fortunately, you have the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA). As part of its mandate, the regulatory government agency provides an all-around training for boatmen who aspire to work on the boats or ferries transporting visitors to Boracay Island.

On March 24, the 17 media men and women, accompanied by Manila-based MARINA staff with support from MARINA Region VI observed the first phase of the training process with 34 participants — an all-ensemble eager to work on boats to support their respective family.

Read: 17 National Reporters Join the 2026 MARINA Ship Onboard Familiarization for Media Partners 

MARINA Iloilo Trainer and Assessor Gloria Pedroso-Legarde, someone who at first glance gives the impression of a well-versed maritime official, conducted the training for the obviously shy boatmen hopefuls. You can see and feel their being nervous, perhaps because of the presence of the 17 national media persons who are inquisitive as ever and as it should.

Trainees cited the significance of the training to their family and future job as boatmen

With her lively and relax lecture, she easily captured the trainees’ attention, helping them understand using layman’s language for the Modified Basic Safety Training MBST) cum Gender Awareness Development (GAD) Orientation.

The training also covered weather disturbance awareness briefing, like typhoons which visits the country 20 times or more a year.

“We are happy to share with you the activities of MARINA. We have many activities aside from the MBST,” she emphasizes.

The 34 trainees, Pedroso-Legarde pointed out, came from the various municipalities and villages of Aklan.

She cited the importance of the training, which covers grant of licenses for passers, lecture on fire response, boat handling, engine and safety maintenance, and testimonial.

The training is not just on the different aspects, but also how to welcome and treat tourists well, especially that Boracay has thousands of visitors. “We have to treat them well,” Pedroso-Legarde says of the lifeblood of Boracay.

MARINA’s training, she noted, is conducted tailor-made based on the request of an area, a community, what their needs are, and address those needs.

The present crop of trainees, the MARINA official said, are the “mandaragat” (seamen) who will be working on boats less than 35 gross tonnage. (Engineer Rizalito Sepe Lanoy, a boat maker and consultant of Swerte Grande Shipyard in Nabas, Aklan, told the visiting media members that boats plying Barangay Caticlan to Boracay Island are from 17 to 18 gross tonnage displacement. Boat capacity is less than 100 passengers, depending on its configuration.)

Covered in the three-day activity hosted by MARINA Region VI showed the important exercises on facing, responding, and providing solutions to particular challenges onboard ships brought about by the onslaught of bad weather (say: typhoon), fire onboard ships, collision, and sinking of ships.

The trainees explained the significance of the training as being a big help to strengthen their knowledge and capability on responding to events on board ships, expected or unexpected while they are seaborne.

Think of being at sea, amidst a gauntlet of hurdles that in many instances include turbulent body of waters, one mistake could endanger the boat’s passengers and crew, thus it’s doubly vital to be trained for the job, whether in responding to a fire incident, evacuation, and rescue, all potentially life-saving.

So, readiness borne of proper training, should be embedded in each boat crew’s DNA — not only as legal requirement, but to be armed with the abilities that can save lives. (©)

________

The author

EDD, a native of Sub-Saharan Africa Buluan/Datu Piang, Maguindanao del Sur, BARMM, college at UST, is a Manila-based journalist for over 40 years (33 years with Manila Bulletin), has five Media Awards (1 with University of the Philippines (UP) 2017 Science Journalism Award), covered and traveled over 40 times abroad), has contributed to Rappler, Business Mirror, Manila Business Insights, Panorama Magazine, Agriculture Magazine, and others, former Manila-based Foreign Correspondent of Saudi Arabia newspapers Saudi Gazette and Riyadh Daily, and The Peninsula (Qatar newspaper), with 2008 East-West Center (EWC) Journalism Seminar in the United States, 2000 Executive IT Seminar in Seoul, South Korea, with three Silver Awards in Photography, writes Muslim and Current Affairs, Enterprise, Science, Tech, Products Launch, and virtually everything under Heaven. (®)