Filipino migrant fishers toil on foreign vessels, return home with unpaid wages
…Fishing starts late at night. At 9 pm, the captain of the ship would sound the buzzer and the nets are cast. The crew waits. After an hour or so, the nets are hauled up again. They would organize the catch, put them in the freezer…
Regala said he worked on the Chinese fishing vessel Fu Yuan Yu 7895. That was not the name of the ship written on his contract, administered by Buwan Tala Manning. He was originally assigned to Fu Yuan Yu 8508 and his one-year contract stipulated that he would get a monthly salary of $379 (P21,588)* by working 48 hours a week.
Fu Yuan Yu 7895, according to records from non-profit journalism organization The Outlaw Ocean Project, had been blocked by the United States’ Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control due to the operator’s involvement in transshipment of shark carcasses, as well as reports of physical violence and forced labor…
Regala did not settle. Instead of going home, he found work in a warehouse. He did this while he awaited resolution of his case. Each day he rode a bike to work. When he didn’t use it, he parked it along the alley, just outside his aunt’s sari-sari store…