PPA chief vows to ‘comply’ with DOTR order to cut travel and shipping costs

THE Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) will “comply” with the order of Department of Transportation (DOTR) Secretary Jaime J. Bautista to “lower travel and shipping costs,” its chief said on Tuesday.

In a news statement, PPA Officer in Charge Manuel A. Boholano said his office has started reviewing the operations of the agency, including statutory and regulatory costs being levied by the PPA as well as indirect costs related to the efficiency and productivity of the ports.

“Our first order of business is to comply with the directive of the DOTR to lower travel and shipping costs,” Boholano said.

He added that the group plans to make representations with other maritime government agencies, shipping line operators, and other port stakeholders to discuss the efficient utilization of facilities particularly in high-volume ports like the ports in Manila, Batangas, Cagayan de Oro, and Iloilo, among others, which are considered gateway ports.

Likewise, the port agency plans to accelerate the digitalization of its processes to reduce processing time and lower overhead costs by providing quicker travel time for both passengers and port stakeholders.

Boholano said the agency is “bent to continue with its infrastructure modernization and improvement to further provide shippers, regular sea-going public, and tourists comfort and convenience while inside the ports.”

He added that he plans to carry on existing policies such as the exemptions of students, senior citizens, differently-abled persons, uniformed personnel, and Medal of Valor Awardees and their first-degree kin in the payment of passenger terminal fees in all Ppa-controlled ports.

Since its first application prior to the pandemic, the free terminal fee is equivalent to a benefit of close to a P7-million monthly average.

To date, the PPA posted a 130-percent surge in passage traffic to 20.87 million during the first five months of 2022, versus the 9.07 million posted in the same period the year prior.

Containerized cargo traffic also increased by 3.84 percent to 3.12 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUS) from only 3.00 million TEUS in the same period a year earlier. Shipcalls also went up 13.4 percent for the period compared to the 153,007 shipcalls posted in 2021, while total cargo volume was flat at 101.74 million metric tons.

“This is a challenge that we gladly take, so let us start looking into this directive,” Boholano said.