MANILA — CAPTAIN Alfonso Del Castillo is upset.

He is looking at seven years before each of the 14 cases his seafarer-recruitment company TSM Philippines Inc. filed at the National Labor Relations Commission will be resolved.

But an ongoing lobby by seafarers’ union International Transportation Workers Federation (ITF) for voluntary arbitration can erase whatever ill feelings Del Castillo said he has over the slow grind of justice for Filipino seafarers.