MAJOR stakeholders in the maritime industry have come together to ask President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to immediately revoke an order from the Philippine Ports Authority to impose an additional container monitoring system in the current ports operations.
In an urgent open letter to the President, which came out in a major daily last Monday, a total of 17 groups, coming from vital sectors of the maritime industry, said there is no need to implement PPA-Administrative Order No. 04-2021, or the proposed additional container monitoring system.
The stakeholders said the Trusted Operator Program-Container Registry Monitoring System (TOP-CRMS) and Empty Container Storage Shared Service Facility (ECSSSF) will “end up derailing the (Marcos) administration’s economic recovery efforts.”
“The implementation of the TOP-CRMS/ECSSSF has been consistently and vehemently opposed by various stakeholders since the first public consultation held on June 15, 2021,” the group said in its open letter.
Among those who signed the open letter were Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry In. (PCCI) President George T. Barcelon, Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. (FFCCCII) President Dr. Henry Lim Bon Liong, and Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (PHILEXPORT).
Also signing the open letter were the heads of the Supply Chain Management Association of the Philippines (SCMAP), Philippine Association of Meat Processors In. (PAMPI), Philippine Multimodal Transport and Logistics Association Inc. (PMTLAI), Alliance of Truck Owners and Organizations (ACTOO), Alliance of Container Yard Operators of the Philippines (ACYOP), Association of International Shipping Lines In. (AISL), Association of Off-Dock CFS Operators of the Philippines (ACOP), Custom Brokers Federation of the Philippines (CBFP), Pasig Port Users United, Philippine Liner Shipping Association (PLSA), Philippine Ship Agents’ Association (PSAA), Port Users Confederation of the Philippines (PUCP), Practicing Customs Brokers Association of the Philippines (PCBAP), and the United Port Users Confederation of the Philippines (UPC).
The group also sent copies of the open letter to Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri, Speaker Martin Romualdez, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan, Trade and Industry Secretary Alfredo Pascual, Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista, Bureau of Customs (BOC) Commissioner Filemon Ruiz, and House Committee on Transportation Chairperson Rep. Romeo Acop. The group underscored that its estimates show that the implementation of AO 04-2021 will “result in an almost 50% increase in the logistics cost of imported goods.”
“The PPA fails to consider that the ultimate victims of these additional costs is the ordinary Filipino consumer, who is already bleeding from an inflation rate of 8.1%,” the group told Marcos.
They also pointed out that the implementation of TOP-CRMS/ECSSSF was not designed to address smuggling in the country.
“In a Trucking Summit organized by the PPA on January 16, 2023, it was categorically admitted by PPA officials that the TOP-CRMS was not designed to address smuggling, and that its relationship to smuggling is merely incidental,” they noted.
They charged the “real focus (of the PPA order) is the return of empty containers and container deposits.”
The 17 signatories also charged that the PPA held only one public consultation on June 15, 2021, before it issued PPA AO 04-2021, and that this consultation “only involved select stakeholders.”
They also warned that “PPA’s failure to analyze the impact of TOPS-CRMS and coordinate with stakeholders could lead to a repeat of the 2014 port congestion fiasco.”
“In 2014, the lack of rigorous analysis of policy options and lack of proper coordination with stakeholders resulted in disastrous port congestion with an economic cost of at last P43.8 billion. The country simply cannot afford a repeat of the 2014 fiasco in these already troubled times,” the stakeholders asked the President.
The group warned the PPA order “threatens to cripple the transport and logistics industries and the national economy as a whole.”
