GMA stops MICP expansion

President Arroyo has decided to put a stop to the proposed expansion of the Manila International Container Port (MICP), citing the need to decongest the present seaport/cargo handling services in North and South Harbors.

President Arroyo said this decision is based on the study and recommendations submitted by her economic managers headed by Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II. The formal announcement of this decision will form part of the major points in President Arroyo’s State-of-the-Nation Address which she is scheduled to deliver on Jan. 6.

The President said she has instructed Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) general manager Al Cusi to concentrate on improvements of the existing MICP facilities.

Affected by the government’s decision are the expansion plans at the MICP of the International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ITCSI) which is controlled by businessman/industrialist Enrique Razon.

The President concurred with the recommendations of her economic team that while the current volume of cargo being handled at the MICP has reached saturation point any excess should be capably handled by ports just outside Metro Manila.

The President vowed to complete the ongoing seaport projects in Batangas Port, Subic Bay in Zambales and in Phividec to decongest the Port of Manila and spread the trade and investment activities in other parts of the country.

In the specific case of the Batangas seaport, the President said she has asked Batangas Gov. Dodong Mandanas to improve the access roads leading to the port of Batangas City.

Mrs. Arroyo recalled that she inaugurated Batangas seaport last Jan. 16 more than 10 years after the project was started while she was just a bureaucrat at the DTI during the term of former President Corazon Aquino until she became President last year at the end of the EDSA-2.

This decision came barely two weeks after receiving the leaders of the Philippine-US Business Council with whom she had a two-hour closed door meeting at Malacañang where they discussed six-point recommendations on how to boost trade and investments in the country.

The council, led by its chairman, former Finance Secretary Ramon "Boy Blue" del Rosario (president of Phinma), presented their specific proposals such as the "open air cargo policy" and alternative seaports that they believe would bring about increased volume of trade and investments into the Philippines and make it a regional hub of business, especially those coming from its traditional economic partners like the United States and Japan.

"The Philippines as a seaport hub also elicited very good reaction. One of the ideas

put forward still to be studied carefully is, instead of continuing to expand the seaports in Manila, to consider Subic, Batangas, and Phividec ports as alternative ports that can be encouraged to develop more quickly because of the congestion that is already occurring in the port of Manila," Del Rosario said.

"And we said one of the things that the council can try to do is to serve as catalyst and encourage private companies, shipping companies like Maersk and Evergreen, to consider using these harbors and ports as regional seaport hubs for their container business," Del Rosario said.

After her meeting that day with the councils, the President told The STAR that if these seaports would be opened up as new cargo hubs, the proposed MICP expansion would have to be stopped because they are so close to each other.

Likewise, Del Rosario said, President Arroyo agreed with the council’s proposed "open air cargo policy" that would be applied in the Diosdado Macapagal Airport in Clark Field, Pampanga; the Mactan International Airport; and the Gen. Santos City airport, representing one regional hub each in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, respectively.

During that Palace meeting, Del Rosario said President Arroyo discussed in details with them these specific area of concern and told them that many of their recommendations were, in fact, already in her administration’s agenda she set last October for priority implementation over the next six months.