GORDON WANTS NAVAL ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN INCLUDED IN MARITIME COURSES' CURRICULUM

To cultivate Filipino talent in ship-building, Senator Richard J. Gordon has proposed to include naval architectural design in the curriculum of maritime courses of the country's maritime academies.

Gordon made the proposal during the formal launching of one of the world's biggest commercial vessels built at the Subic Bay shipyard of Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction-Philippines.

"It is high time, I think, that part of the contribution of Hanjin should be to welcome maritime design. But before they can do that, our government must therefore make sure that part of naval architectural design be incorporated in the naval courses or the maritime courses of the maritime academies all over the Philippines," he said.

The senator explained that this way, there will be value-added by way of creativity and the Filipino genius will also be brought to fore.

"After all, we built the ships of the galleons of Spain about three or four centuries ago when we were involved in the Acapulco trade from Mexico," he pointed out.

Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction-Philippines formally launched on Thursday the first-ever Subic-made 20,600-TEU (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit) class container vessel.

The newly-built container ship measures 400 meters in length, 59 meters in width, and 33 meters in depth. Its deck is as big as four football fields. It can transport up to 20,950 units of 40-foot shipping container which, when lined up one after another, would reach 12.5 kilometers long.

"I am very proud to be here and join all our countrymen in making sure that we launch a wonderful vessel, one of the biggest of all. This one will be bringing commerce all over the world and it is built in the Philippines. I feel very, very proud of that because it certainly provides us with a dream that can be accomplished...'Let your dreams devour your life, don't let your life devour your dreams,' said St. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, from whom this ship was named after. And it is exactly what we see here today - the dream happening," Gordon said.

"This is the product of Korea and Filipino craftsmanship, of people who worked hard and developed the work ethics. And we should all be proud," he added.