It's official, SIRB validity increased to 10 years but why some are not happy?

Seaman's Book

The STCW office published MARINA Circular No. 2016-05 officially extending the validity of Seafarers Identification and Record Book(SIRB) or commonly known as Seaman's Book. The validity increased to 10 years from 5 years before.

MARINA Circular No. 2016-05

It drew mixed reactions from the seafarers, some are just plainly glad while others criticized the
amendment. Netizens said that the MARINA administrator was just afraid of president Duterte while others said that Mejia is just showing off.



A valid point is this amendment was kind of useless for the seafarers who's contract are short and continuous. It's because the SIRB has limited pages. It only has 11 pages for the entries and 4 pages for the visas, unlike the passport which has over 40 pages. It's likely to be fully filled even before  reaching the expiry date.

More pages for the SIRB would be great, doesn't matter if they increase the fee, at least the seafarers can use their SIRB for 10 years long.