PPA earnings plunge 79% to ₱300 M

The Philippine Ports Authority (PPA)’s March, 2020 income plunged 79 percent from ₱1.401 billion in the same period last year to ₱300.93 million, roughly 16 days after the government locked down Luzon.

Unaudited net income for the first three months of the year also decreased by 25 percent from ₱3.337 billion in 2019 to ₱2.538 billion this year as all revenue sources of the agency registered negative performances for the period.

Even on PPA’s regulatory income, only Manila North Harbour Port, Inc. registered a positive deviation of 3.75% while the fees coming from International Container Terminal Services, Inc., and Asian Terminals, Inc. went down by 8% and 15%, respectively.

The low net income registered in March and subsequently the first quarter of the year was due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, PPA General Manager Jay Santiago explained.

China first imposed a lockdown on January 23, 2020. The Philippine government imposed the Luzon-wide Enhanced Community Quarantine from March 15 up to the present.

“As early as January, there has been a slowdown in the movement of cargo as China, being the location of several transshipment hubs and a number of large manufacturing firms, has imposed necessary restrictions to control the spread of the dreaded disease,” he stressed.

“Other countries, including the Philippines followed suit, thus, justifying the negative effect of the same in almost all areas of our revenue sources.”

“Hopefully, with the relaxation of some restrictions on trade, we will be able to arrest the downward trend in the next couple of months particularly when the country is already able to lift its restrictions on some trade and commercial processes,” Santiago added.

Total revenues for the first three months, meanwhile, decreased by 17% to ₱3.753 billion from ₱4.509 billion registered in the same period last year. For March, revenues fell 59% to ₱726.64 million from ₱1.773 billion.

From PPA’s revenue sources for the quarter, the hardest hit are the fees coming from its vessel Lay-up operations, which went down by 71% followed by Storage that decreased by 57.42% and arrastre and stevedoring now down by 41%.

The hardest hit include Lay-up fees, Storage fees and share from the Terminal Appointment Booking System or TABS.

Total expenses for the quarter, on the other hand, went up by 7.32% to ₱1.215 billion from ₱1.132 billion in the same period last year wherein bulk of the expenses went to Personnel Services which increased by almost 11%.

For March, expenses went up by 14% to ₱425.71 million from ₱372.72 million.

Late last month, the PPA has remitted at least ₱5 billion in dividends to the National Government to help in the country’s fight against COVID-19.

The amount remitted was by far the highest dividend registered in the 45 years of existence of the agency.

PPA is mandated to remit at least 50% of its net income to the National Coffers annually.

PPA is a regular member of the top 10 ‘billionaires club’ of GOCCs remitting dividends to the Government.

To further help the government in its fight against the dreaded disease, PPA is now retrofitting the Eva Macapagal Super Terminal located inside Pier 15 of the Manila South Harbor to become a COVID19 treatment facility using the P100 million funding support from the Lopez Group of Companies.