North Harbor firm releases P90 million to port workers

MANILA, Philippines - The joint venture company between Harbour Centre Port Terminal Inc. (HCPTI) and San Miguel Corp. (SMC) has paid over P90 million in cash to absorbed laborers at the Manila North Harbor for their past service benefits.

Manila North Harbour Port Inc. (MNHPI) president Renato Castillo said the completion of the payments for the port laborers highlights the company’s commitment to the workers of the country’s premier domestic port.

“We have advanced the payment of past service benefits (PSBs) to all absorbed port laborers that now reached to a total amount of P90.15 million,” Castillo said.

MNHPI added that it is also in the process of finalizing the release of the financial assistance to all bona-fide porters at Manila North Harbor and is expected to release the same in the coming weeks.

While MNHPI acknowledges that the PSB payment is not an obligation of the winning bidder under the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) terms of reference, bid documents, PPA-MNHPI modernization contract, Labor Code, PPA regulations and other pertinent laws, it stated that it is necessary to achieve industrial peace at the port and to ensure good working relations.

Payment of PSBs is supposed to be an obligation of the former cargo handling operators at Manila North Harbor.

Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) and HCPTI earlier bagged the 25-year, P14.5-billion contract to modernize and operate the Manila North Harbor. However, MNHPI is now a 65-35 joint venture of HCPTI and SMC after the latter bought out MPIC in the consortium.

SMC plans to construct a grains terminal and a tank farm in the North Harbor but this still has to be approved by the PPA.

Manila North Harbor handles more than 85 percent of the domestic containerized and breakbulk cargo. It was officially turned over to MNHPI last April 12.

The first phase of the Manila North Harbor modernization program involves the redesign of the 10-pier port into a three- terminal port with much wider beds that would, all together, enable the port to improve its rate of handling containers, from the five containers per hour to 28 containers per hour. From 1.5 million TEUs capacity, MNHPI will increase the capacity to five million containers a year.

The 25-year North Harbor modernization program includes pier rehabilitation, dredging of port waterways, computerization, introduction of new cargo handling equipment and construction of a modern passenger terminal.

Terminal 1 and 2 will be the container terminals while Terminal 3 will be exclusively for general cargo. A separate modern passenger terminal will be built, rivaling those of other countries, to cater to domestic travelers.