The recent approval by the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) of a petition by Manila North Harbour Port Inc. (MNHPI) for a 24-percent increase in the cargo-handling tariff in the facility doesn’t sit well at all with shipping firms, as well as a coalition of consumers and commuters.
The Philippine Inter-Island Shipping Association (Pisa), in a position paper, objected to MNHPI’s rationale in asking for an increase, which are the “upward trend in cost drivers” or the increasing cost of operating the Manila North Harbor.
“For every increase incurred for any cost driver reflected as expense, computed per twenty-foot equivalent unit [TEU], there is already a proportionate revenue earned to compensate such costs incurred by the port operator,” Pisa said.
The shippers claimed that MNHPI’s net income has been steadily rising, from P305.7 million in 2013 to P332.6 million in 2014.
For its part, the Philippine Liner Shipping Association said the fuel and power consumption of MNHPI—at 55 percent from 2012 to 2013 and 78 percent from 2013 to 2014 for fuel and by almost 2 million kilowatts, or a 103.22-percent hike in power cost per TEU for the same period—was “alarming” and should prompt an audit instead.
In an open letter to Jay Daniel Santiago, PPA general manager, the United Filipino Consumers and Commuters (UFCC) asked the agency to “take a second hard look” at the recommendation of a technical working group (TWG), which it said is “unjustified”.
The UFCC told Santiago that, even as the PPA Board has already adopted the TWG recommendation, “it is also within your power to rectify this error, which will have serious adverse implications on our business climate in general, and on ordinary consumers
in particular.”
The group said, “all stakeholders of Manila North Harbor, which is operated by MNHPI, have rejected this proposed upward adjustment in tariff, but the TWG assigned to the case had “conveniently disregarded the concerns raised”.
While the approved increase is lower than the 37.45 percent originally sought by MNHPI, the UFCC said, the additional cost this would entail will still be passed on to
consumers.
“The tariff hike goes against what President Duterte has laid down in his 10-point socioeconomic program, which includes increasing business competitiveness, attracting investments and protecting ordinary people from economic shocks,” it added.
The TWG approved the tariff increase despite opposition from Manila North Harbor users.
For the UFCC, the tariff hike would also mean a windfall for Petron Corp., the majority shareholder in MNHPI.
“This adjustment serves two purposes: on one hand, tariff increase for MNHPI and, on the other, more profit for Petron because of what they claim to be increases in fuel cost. That is a double profit for Petron/MNHPI and double whammy for all consumers.”
The UFCC asked the PPA to suspend the approval of the tariff hike and order an audit of MNHPI.
Apart from this, it asked the PPA “to review the process by which your TWG arrived at their recommendation, which we find suspicious at the very least…given the long-term impact of this upward adjustment on ordinary consumers and taxpayers who will bear the brunt of the tariff increase”.
Trilateral cooperation vs terrorism
The Philippine government is on the right track in seeking closer cooperation with our next-door neighbors, Indonesia and Malaysia, in preventing extremists from making Southeast Asia or any country a base for their operations.
“We don’t want that to happen in Southeast Asia nor anywhere else in the world. But the reality is, while ISIS loses ground in Iraq and Syria, some of these jihadists and extremists will be looking for land bases outside Iraq and Syria,” said Foreign Secretary Alan Peter S. Cayetano recently as he met with officials from Indonesia and Malaysia to firm up ways to address common security concerns.
The purpose of the three-way talks is to craft a framework to share intelligence information that can help the Philippines cope with the ISIS-linked Maute Group’s siege of Marawi City that started on May 23 and remains unresolved as of now.
The three countries appeared to have reached an agreement that a military solution is not enough. It should also include socioeconomic programs to fight the roots
of terrorism.
A number of foreign fighters, including those from Indonesia and Malaysia and even from the Middle East and beyond, such as Chechnya, are believed to have joined terror groups, particularly the Mautes and a faction of the Abu Sayyaf, that attacked Marawi in late-May.
The three-way cooperation among the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia to fight terrorism is a step in the right direction. This cooperation would start with the sharing of information about the known terrorist groups and their leaders operating in their respective borders. This could expand to tighter screening of people traveling in border areas and even joint patrols in the high seas to interdict terrorists trying to cross porous borders to launch terrorist activities, including kidnapping-for-ransom, as what the Abu Sayyaf bandit group has been doing in the Sulu Sea in recent years.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.