PPA moves to digitalize port operations
The Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) targets to implement this year an administrative order (AO) that seeks to digitalize port operations to lower logistics costs and tighten monitoring of cargo movements.
Jay Daniel Santiago, PPA general manager, said in a briefing on Wednesday they were keen on fully enacting AO 04-2021, which covers the P980-million Trusted Operator Program–Container Registry and Monitoring System (TOP-CRMS), as early as the first half of the year.
For now, “we have certain regulatory and legal compliances that we need to undertake and comply with,” Santiago said. It is currently working with the Anti-Red Tape Authority for the regulatory impact review of the measure.
Santiago raised the need to implement the AO to lower the logistics costs given that port charges are the only costs that are being regulated. These charges only account for 2 percent to 5 percent of the total shipping costs, however, which meant minimal impact on the overall spending.
The pricing for other costs such as freight charges, trucking charges and warehousing costs—which comprise the bulk of the expenses—depends on the service providers, he explained. As such, the AO calls for the eradication of container deposits, which are being collected by foreign shipping lines from the importers, to alleviate the financial burden.
Instead, importers will be required to secure container deposit insurance, which will guarantee that damages will be paid should these occur. This setup, Santiago said, eliminates the need for shippers to pay upfront costs. Improved monitoring
Container deposits range around P10,000 to P30,000 for dry containers and up to P180,000 for refrigerated containers.
The TOP-CRMS system has a dashboard that can monitor the vacancy rates at container yards to make sure the units being returned have slots. He said this could make the container movement more efficient moving forward given the on-ground visibility.
The platform can also aid in the government’s anti-smuggling efforts as it can track the container delivery movement.
“If we know the container or the cargo to an address other than the consignee address, then there must be a reason,” he said, noting this could alert the authorities that a “diversion of delivery” could have possibly occurred. “As part of the system, it will help the concerned agencies to make their jobs easier, to give them more information, to help them perform their assigned tasks of preventing smuggling,” Santiago added. —
