It can take hours before a public advisory is cleared for release (Daniel Ceng/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Beyond the 4am scramble: AI for Philippine maritime safety

The Philippine Coast Guard loses hours to manual reporting every storm season – Australian AI could give critical time back.

Joy Dianne Gumatay

21 August 20263 min read

At 4am, the Philippine Coast Guard begins building an overview of what is happening across the country’s ports and waterways. How many passengers are stranded? Which vessels have temporarily suspended operations? How many rolling cargoes are waiting at ports? Which watercraft have taken shelter amid rough sea conditions?

During typhoons and the southwest monsoon season, these figures help Coast Guard commanders understand prevailing situations across their areas of responsibility. Vessel operators need timely information to assess if scheduled voyages can safely proceed. Journalists rely on the latest updates to help travellers decide whether to postpone or continue their planned sea travel.

But an operational overview recorded at 4am may not reach the public until as late as 7am.

I know this reporting gap firsthand. As part of the Philippine Coast Guard unit that issues maritime safety updates to the media and the public, I understand the labour involved in gathering and consolidating reports from operational units across the country, a process that can take hours before a public advisory is cleared for release.

Canberra should support Manila in addressing this limitation by working with the Philippine Coast Guard in developing an AI-assisted maritime safety information system.

For Coast Guard officers, the hours saved through an AI-assisted maritime safety information system could be spent saving lives.

Australia is investing $160 million (Opens in new window) in its Southeast Asia Maritime Partnerships, including technical support and technology transfer to strengthen regional maritime capability. In the Philippines, its $18 million (Opens in new window) Civil Maritime Advancement through Partnerships and Support program already provides a framework for practical engagement and capacity-building in the civil maritime domain, specifically efforts to increase resilience to climate-related shocks.

The Philippine Coast Guard could develop such a system on its own, but partnering with Australia could bring AI expertise and experience that would make the implementation faster and more efficient. The Coast Guard would provide the operational knowledge and eventually sustain the system, while Australian support could turn the initiative into a pilot model that may also be explored by other Southeast Asian countries facing similar maritime safety information challenges.

Such an approach is anchored in strengthening resilience to maritime challenges and contributing to a stable region, which is the very purpose of Australia’s civil maritime investment in the Philippines.

With the recent announcement of Foreign Minister Penny Wong that Australia would expand (Opens in new window) its bilateral civil maritime assistance to Manila, Canberra should ensure that an information system for maritime safety becomes part of that investment.

Coast Guard units would continue providing operational information. A conventional database can store structured inputs, but AI can interpret incomplete reports that commonly occur during rapidly evolving operations. An AI-assisted maritime safety information system could organise raw entries, identify missing fields or potential errors, consolidate data and prepare a national maritime safety overview every four hours, consistent with the Coast Guard’s reporting cycle, for human verification. The objective is to reduce the time between information being reported from 17 regional districts (Opens in new window) and the production of timely public updates.

Instead of operations officers repeatedly collecting and processing data before the National Headquarters can assess the overall situation, the system could maintain a continuously updated dataset. Designated operations officers could then focus on maintaining accuracy and handling concerns that require human judgement.

Once established, the same information infrastructure could also reinforce disaster response.

Coast Guard units conduct simultaneous operations: rescuing victims of maritime incidents, evacuating residents trapped by flooding, transporting stranded commuters and bringing relief supplies to disaster-stricken areas.

The same AI-assisted information system could integrate operational data during disaster response, giving the National Headquarters a more comprehensive understanding of what is happening in affected areas without requiring operations officers to repeatedly reconstruct information that has already travelled through the reporting chain. Patterns that are difficult to detect in manually produced situation reports could also be identified more systematically, informing long-term planning and resource allocation.
Australia has already committed to strengthening civil maritime capability in the Philippines. Enabling the Philippine Coast Guard in improving how it processes maritime safety information fits naturally within that cooperation.
For Coast Guard officers, the hours saved through an AI-assisted maritime safety information system could be spent saving lives (Opens in new window).

About the author

Joy Dianne Gumatay

Joy Dianne Gumatay is a Senior Strategic Communications Officer with the Philippine Coast Guard.

Topics

Philippines Australia Artificial intelligence Aid & development