Joseph Manolo R. Rebano

Joseph Manolo R. Rebano is a Senior Partner of Del Rosario and Del Rosario. He heads the firm’s marine casualty practice. He has broad maritime focused practice and offers a broad range of legal services to clients. He represents vessel owners and charterers, oil majors, traders, ship managers/agents, transport intermediaries, port terminals, protection and indemnity insurance clubs, hull and liability insurers and other marine insurers in both contentious and non-contentious matters. His experience covers a wide range of shipping matters including charter party disputes, ship casualties, marine environmental and pollution claims, salvage, wreck removal, defense of seafarer employment, personal injury and death claims, ship arrest and attachment of ships, ship finance/sale and purchase, rehabilitation, and disputes involving carriage of goods by air, sea and road. He has been involved in numerous major marine casualties in the Philippines and other jurisdictions including collisions, fires and groundings. Some of the significant Philippine maritime casualties Mr. Rebano has been involved in are the “NOL Schedar” in 2000 (grounding/pollution incident resulted in major changes in Philippine maritime environmental legislations, “Solar 1” in 2006 (considered the largest pollution incident in the Philippines), “Superferry 14” in 2004 (terrorist attack on ferry), “St. Thomas Aquinas” in 2013 (ferry and cargo vessel collision), and “Harita Bauxite” in 2013 (cargo liquefaction resulting to vessel sinking/pollution of several provinces). On the insurance side, he advises clients on various types of insurance products including, among others, marine insurance. He also has considerable experience in commercial dispute resolution, corporate, regulatory and transactional matters specializing in maritime related entities, including disputes arising out of joint ventures, compliances and shareholder disputes.

Year on year Mr. Rebano is recognized in the various legal directories. He is a hall of famer for Shipping in Legal 500 and likewise a distinguished practitioner for Shipping in AsiaLaw. Chambers Asia 2012 noted that, “Joseph Rebano is best known for his expertise in admiralty and related investigations. Sources describe him as ‘an outstanding lawyer, he is very diligent and very thorough.’” Since 2018, Joseph has consistently been recognized by Asia Business Law as among The Philippines Top 100 lawyers.

He is a past president of the Philippine Maritime Law Association, former Vice Chairman of the IPBA Maritime Committee, a former core group member of the Draft Maritime Code project of the Philippine Congress and a Trustee in the Philippine Bar Association.

Mr. Rebano graduated cum laude from the University of the Philippines, with a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Economics. He obtained his Bachelor of Laws from the College of Law of the University of the Philippines.  In 2001, he attended a Programme in General Management for Shipping jointly organized by the Indian Institute of Management-Amhedabad and the Indian Maritime Training Centre.  He also attended the Asia Law & Practice program of the Institute of Maritime Law, University of Southampton, United Kingdom in 2006.