Administration (POEA) to recruit seafarers for employment on board vessels
accredited to it. Kara Seal Shipping Co., Ltd. (Kara Seal, for brevity) is petitioner’s
foreign-based principal, which owns and manages M/V Agios Andreas, a vessel
accredited to petitioner.
Respondents Felicisimo Cuesta and Wilfredo Gonzaga were hired in the
latter part of 1998 as Third Engineers on board M/V Agios Andreas for a one-year
contract with a monthly salary of nine hundred US dollars (US$900). It was
through Oriental that Kara Seal hired them.
Cuesta
boarded M/V
Agios
Andreas on November
14,
1998,
at Durban, South Africa while Gonzaga boarded the ship onJanuary 5, 1999, at
the Port of Marseille, France.
On November 27, 1998, Kara Seal and M/V Agios Andreas’ Shipmaster
signed an Agreement with the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF for
brevity) increasing the monthly salary of the vessel’s employees. Based on said
Agreement, respondents were entitled to an increased monthly salary of one
thousand nine hundred thirty-six US dollars (US$1,936).
On January 8, 1999, at the Port of Marseille, an ITF Inspector boarded M/V
Agios Andreas for a routine check. He discovered that the vessel’s crew had not
been paid according to the ITF Agreement. The Shipmaster assured the ITF
Inspector he would comply as soon as the vessel reached its next port, Piombino
in Italy.
However, upon reaching Port Piombino on January 19, 1999, respondents
were ordered repatriated to Manila. Before their repatriation, they were made to
sign Letters of Indemnity, which we quote: