Correspondence
The Outlaw Ocean Project emailed the contract address for AMBBS Shipping Management.
The email said: "My name is Jake Conley. I am a journalist with The Outlaw Ocean Project, working in collaboration with Gaea Cabico (copied here), a journalist at PhilStar. For the past seven months, we have been developing, researching and reporting a story about Filipino citizens involved in sea-based labor, and your company is mentioned in the story. As we would like to give you the opportunity to respond to what we are saying, below you’ll find several points and comments we would like to offer you the chance to comment on and confirm or refute. We require your response by 5pm Manila time, Friday, July 14.
Points for comment: — Documents filed with the National Labor Relations Commission (case no. case no. OFW (M) 02-00070-22) show that your company, AMBBS Shipping Management, was involved in placing Juan Cernal Jr. on a vessel he later died on. His contract had stipulated he would work on the Gita No. 3 as a messman, but, according to documents filed with the NLRC, he ended up working as a fisherman doing hard labor aboard the Pu Yuan 768, where he died. Can you / would you like to comment on this account, and would you like to confirm or refute these allegations? — The documents filed with the NLRC show that AMBBS Shipping Management, alongside Able Maritime Seafarers, was made to pay Cernal’s family $56,100, including death benefits. Can you / would you like to comment on the requirement of this payment and its reasoning, or to confirm or refute the amount or allegations? — What safeguards, if any, does AMBBS have in place to make sure individuals in its employment are not subject to labor abuses or forced labor schemes?
Thank you."