Short answer. Yes. Article 20 charges the National Seamen Board with the power and duty to maintain a complete registry of all Filipino seamen, as part of its broader mandate to develop and maintain a comprehensive program for Filipino seamen employed overseas.
What the law says
To maintain a complete registry of all Filipino seamen.
Labor Code, Article 20 — National Seamen Board. Read the full provision →
The registry duty itself
Article 20 states the registry duty in plain terms, listing it among the powers and duties of the National Seamen Board: to maintain a complete registry of all Filipino seamen. The registry is not a side project — it is one of the Board's named statutory duties, sitting alongside its other responsibilities for Filipino seamen working overseas, and it is stated as directly as any of the Board's other listed powers.
The Board's broader mandate
That registry duty exists within a wider purpose Article 20 sets for the Board: a National Seamen Board is hereby created which shall develop and maintain a comprehensive program for Filipino seamen employed overseas. Maintaining a complete registry is one concrete piece of that comprehensive program, giving the Board and, by extension, the government a documented record of who is working as a Filipino seaman abroad.
Other powers the Board exercises alongside the registry
The registry sits next to two other duties in the same article: to provide free placement services for seamen; to regulate and supervise the activities of agents or representatives of shipping companies in the hiring of seamen for overseas employment and secure the best possible terms of employment for contract seamen workers and secure compliance therewith. Placement, regulation of hiring agents, and the registry work together as parts of the same overall oversight function.
The Board also resolves disputes involving seamen
Beyond registration and oversight, the Board carries adjudicatory authority as well: the Board shall have original and exclusive jurisdiction over all matters or cases including money claims, involving employer-employee relations, arising out of or by virtue of any law or contracts involving Filipino seamen for overseas employment. Decisions the Board makes in that capacity are appealable to the National Labor Relations Commission, and the Commission's own decisions are final and inappealable.
Why a registry serves the Board's other functions
A registry of this kind supports everything else Article 20 asks the Board to do. Free placement services depend on knowing who is available and qualified; regulating hiring agents depends on being able to check whom those agents are actually placing; and resolving disputes involving Filipino seamen depends on having a reliable record of who is employed, where, and under what arrangement. The registry is not a standalone recordkeeping exercise — it is the documentary backbone the Board's other statutory duties rely on.