Court refuses maritime school’s plea for TRO on closure of 2 courses

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) has said no legal hurdles now block its order to close down two substandard programs at the Philippine Maritime Institute or PMI Colleges after a Quezon City court rejected the school’s plea to stop the closure of its programs.

In a statement, CHEd said the Quezon City Regional Trial Court denied the PMI’s petition for a temporary restraining order to stop the closure of its marine transportation and marine engineering programs.

CHEd said the ruling, which it received on Oct. 28, noted that “there were indeed deficiencies discovered during CHEd investigation and inspection” of the two programs and that the court “was not convinced” that PMI had the right to a TRO.

The commission ordered the closure of two PMI programs earlier this month, noting poor compliance with CHEd quality standards.

PMI students said up to 12,000 of them have been affected by the closure order, unsure on how to continue their studies with the programs no longer continuing in the second semester.

But CHEd said — as it also reported in court — that 12 maritime schools “are cooperating in absorbing the students.”

“CHEd is also preparing mechanisms to assist affected PMI faculty improve their teaching competencies to expedite hiring in other compliant maritime schools,” CHEd said.

CHEd also bared that PMI was among 15 schools that the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) had found to be deficient in an independent audit of maritime programs earlier this year.  Most of those audited already complied with recommended remedies to enhance school operations.

The commission said that in light of the EMSA report, the Office of the President and the Department of Foreign Affairs issued an order to shut down poorly performing seafaring programs “to prevent un-quantifiable damage to the country’s maritime industry.”

Seafaring is among the top overseas jobs for Filipinos.  Following the audit, EMSA warned that Filipinos might no longer be hired in ships registered in European nations if Philippine maritime training programs remained to be of poor quality, CHEd said.