To ease congestion at the Port of Manila, the government should consider placing a cap on cargo volume while maximizing the use of the Batangas and Subic ports, according to a Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) policy paper titled “Port Congestion in a Congested Metropolis.”
The six-page paper authored by Enrico L. Basilio, chief of party of the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Advancing Philippine Competitiveness (COMPETE) project, also suggested a one- to two-month suspension of the daytime truck ban in the city of Manila as a window to put in place needed long-term measures.
“Maximizing the utilization of the Subic and Batangas ports (so that they will not end up as ‘white elephants’) is not only the correct long-term solution to the congestion in Metro Manila but also sends the correct signal that further port development should happen in these ports (no longer in Manila),” the paper said.
It noted that while the cargo throughput at the Manila port had already exceeded its rated capacity, Batangas and Subic remained highly underutilized with only 3-percent and 6.4-percent utilization, respectively, of their annual capacity.
Despite the massive investments worth about P128.6 billion spent on the development of these two ports as well as of the expressways leading to them, the paper lamented that the goal to decongest Manila “remains a vision” as the government had failed to shift cargo to the Batangas and Subic ports.
“PPA [the Philippine Ports Authority] claims that the current contracts in Manila call for the construction of additional berths. This, perhaps, is the best time for the government to renegotiate the contracts so that development of new terminals should already happen in Batangas and Subic ports,” the PCCI said.
Alongside shifting container traffic to Batangas and Subic, the PCCI also urged the national government to “to issue a policy putting a limit (cap) on the volume of containers that can be handled by Manila port.”
The paper cited that a similar policy implemented by the Port Authority of Thailand, which limited container traffic at the then-congested Port of Bangkok, proved successful as bigger volumes were instead shifted to Laem Chabang port outside the capital city.
Meanwhile, in light of the truck ban in Manila that worsened port congestion, the PCCI paper presented other solutions, as follows:
• Request the Manila city government to lift the truck ban for one to two months “to temporarily alleviate the port congestion in Manila and enable both national government and the private sector to implement the real long-term solutions” aforementioned;
• Request international shipping lines to temporarily waive container detention/demurrage fees for the next two months so that shippers would not incur additional costs;
• Transport all abandoned and seized containers as well as partially move foreign container traffic to Subic port using container barges to be subsidized by the Department of Transportation and Communications;
• Make a night-time delivery facility available for transport and logistics providers; and
• Put up additional container depots and truck holding areas in Bulacan, Cavite and other nearby areas.
The PCCI pointed out that the Manila daytime truck ban implemented since February not only triggered port congestion but also disrupted operations of exporters, importers and manufacturers as deliveries of inputs as well as finished goods were being delayed.