PHILIPPINES Law and Practice Contributed by: Valeriano Del Rosario, Daphne Ruby Grasparil, Patrick Sarmiento and Maria Francesca Bautista, VeraLaw
4.3 Liability in Personam for Owners or Demise Charterers By way of background, in an action both in rem and in personam, the Admiralty Rules require that the “relevant person” should either be the owner or the charterer by demise at the time of the filing of the initiatory pleading, called a Complaint with the Admiralty Court. The “rel - evant person” is defined by the Admiralty Rules as “the person who would be liable on the claim in an action in personam”. However, in an action purely in rem, the vessel may be arrested regardless of its owners’ per - sonal liability on the merits. Such would be the case for claims arising from recognised maritime liens such as the unpaid bunkers claim described in 4.4 Unpaid Bunkers (also see Tsuneishi Heavy Industries v MIS Maritime Corporation). 4.4 Unpaid Bunkers Under the Admiralty Rules, Section 5 (j), Rule 1, Part I, the bunker supplier’s claim for unpaid bunkers comes within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty Court. The claim for necessaries gives rise to a maritime lien under Philippine law, and under Section 6 (e), Rule 1, Part I, a claim based on a maritime lien may be enforced by way of an action in rem. Under Section 21 of the Ship Mortgage Decree of 1978, any person furnish - ing supplies to any vessel upon the order of the owner of such vessel, or of a person authorised by the owner, shall have a maritime lien over the vessel. The bunker supplier will need to allege or prove that credit was given to such vessel. The Philippines does not yet have case law to state whether a charterer is “a person author - ised by the owner” to order bunkers. Therefore, each claim will have to be judged based on its individual merits.
4.5 Arresting a Vessel An application for arrest in the Philippines is an ancillary remedy ie, it can only be applied for through a principal in rem action brought against the vessel. In filing the principal in rem action, a verified (sworn) complaint must be filed by the plaintiff, which should be accompanied by: • a statement that it is a case in Admiralty jurisdiction; • the names, addresses, and other relevant personal or juridical circumstances of the parties; • all facts material and relevant to plaintiff’s cause or causes of action; • the law, rule or regulation relied upon, violated or sought to be enforced; • specification of all evidence supporting the cause or causes of action, such as affidavits of witnesses, authenticated documentary evidence which must be attached to the com - plaint, and object evidence; • the reliefs applied for, which includes an application for the issuance of a Warrant of Arrest of a Vessel; and • a certification against forum shopping. Since the complaint must be verified and accompanied by a certification against forum shopping, the plaintiff’s representative must be duly authorised through a power of attorney, a board resolution, a secretary’s certificate or other similar document. These documents must be duly notarised, or when executed outside of the Philippines, duly apostilled or consularised. The documents accompanying the verified com - plaint, including its annexes, need not be origi - nal or certified true copies at the time of filing, but the original or certified true copies will be required by the Admiralty Court during the pre- trial conference.
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