Is the Daily Journal appropriate?

Daily Journal of Bridge Watchkeeping Duties

Sometime in September last year(2014), MARINA released a circular adding the Daily Journal of Bridge Watchkeeping Duties (DJBWD) and Daily Journal of Engine Watchkeeping Duties (DJBWD) as additional requirements on the Licensure Examination of the aspiring marine officers for both deck and engine departments. MARINA describes this journal as “Multiple Reinforcement Learning” but let us scrutinize it further.

It is included in the daily journal of engine watchkeeping duties that an engine cadet must get the latitude, longitude, ship’s course and speed hourly. First of all, this is a deck cadet’s job.

None in the engine cadet’s duties and responsibilities onboard can you find such instruction. The engine cadet will have to call the bridge hourly just to ask. Imagine a situation where the visibility is near zero, the traffic in the area is really heavy and there’s the engine cadet calling hourly just to ask the following.

This will certainly piss the bridge department off. Worst case scenario, it could cause an accident. Same goes for the deck cadets, they are required to take the fuel oil, diesel oil and the lubricating oil remaining on board for the daily journal of bridge watchkeeping duties. This should be none of the deck cadets/ business. They should be into the operation of navigating the ship safely.

This could also be considered a nuisance for the engine department for the deck cadet must ask the engine department about it every hour. What if the latter is busy overhauling or repairing some sort of machineries?


Not to mention you won't find the word daily journal in the 3 version of STCW Convention or Code. Clearly this daily journal is just another burden for Filipino seafarers invented by the “STCW experts” here in the country. Do you agree with the Daily Journal? why or why not? comment it down below.