Tsuneishi shipyards doing fine with Aboitiz
Last week, I learned that Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Philippines, the Philippine subsidiary of South Korean shipping giant Hanjin, declared bankruptcy. This was surprising news because supposedly Hanjin has a very good economic track record and their opening near Subic Bay was a plus factor for this Korean shipping company.
Thinking that this issue could affect our Tsuneishi shipyards in Balamban, I read in the Business Section of The Philippine STAR last Monday that the Tsuneishi Heavy Industries Inc., a joint venture between Japan’s Tsuneishi Holdings and the Aboitiz Group, saying that it is business as usual for the company and that it has no plans to close its shipyard in Balamban despite some slowdown in the global shipping business.
The last time I was in Tsuneishi Heavy Industries they said they had a six-year order of bulk carrier ships. The STAR apparently interviewed Aboitiz Equity Ventures President and CEO Erramon Aboitiz who revealed to the press that Tsuneishi Heavy Industries continues to receive orders for different types of ships. Above all, he said: “We have no plans at all of shutting down. Everything is doing well and okay.” It is very comforting that Tsuneishi Heavy Industries is doing fine. I guess this is because they are in Cebu and Cebu is doing economically better than Subic Bay.
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I realize after my travels to Japan that the Japanese found solutions to their bad traffic problems. This is by building carousel-type parking where 20 cars would be placed on top of each other and all that the driver has to do is press the number assigned to his car and voila! It appears in a jiffy. Then for added comfort, the Japanese Diet came up with a law that states that if you do not have a parking space for your car, then you are not allowed to own one. In short proof of parking space is a requirement to own a car in Japan.
This is why I have written about the parking issue many times in my articles. Well, yesterday I read in the inside pages of The STAR a story titled “Proof of Parking Space Law needed --Senator.” As the article says, “Congress should immediately pass the bill that would require prospective vehicle owners to present proof of parking space for a new car to complement the move of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority to impose heftier fines on illegal parking, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said yesterday.”
I didn’t realize Gatchalian was the author of Senate Bill 201 known as the Proof of Parking Space Act. I also learned that the MMDA had recently raised the fine for attended illegally parked vehicles from its original price of P200 to P1,000. Drivers of unattended illegally parked vehicles, on the other hand, will now have to pay P2,000. This is something Cebuano legislators ought to learn, given the fact that the Philippines loses P2.4 billion per day due to bad traffic.
With cars becoming so cheap, especially second- or third-hand cars, people living in shanty towns can now own cars and they park it along the roadside, which causes the road to narrow to the point that only one vehicle can pass through and worse, emergency trucks often can no longer pass because the narrow road is blocked. While I haven’t read the contents of Senate Bill 201, I hope it covers Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, and Metro Davao.
Mind you, in Singapore and Taipei people used to have motorcycles or scooters or cars and these were parked anywhere. But that was 20 years ago. Today because Taipei began operating a Light Rail Transit there are less scooters or motorcycles on the street and lesser people buy cars because it is much faster and cheaper for them to take the LRT. So let’s start by following the MMDA’s recent increase of the fines from P200 to P1,000 for illegally parked vehicles. This should force people to take a taxi or Grab car if they go to areas that do not have any parking facilities. Like it or not we must start all efforts to reduce our monstrous traffic problem!