Cokaliong invests P8M for new monitoring system

CEBU, Philippines - As part of their aim to continually give the best service to their customers, Cokaliong Shipping Lines Inc. (CSLI) has put in their biggest investment for the upgrading of one of their monitoring systems.

Chester Cokaliong, the Chief executive officer and Chief Operating officer of CSLI, said that they have invested eight million pesos to order a state of the art monitoring system from Japan for their MV Filipinas Cebu ship.

Cokaliong said that it was definitely a good investment since the new system, which is the first of its kind in Cebu and in the Philipines, would upgrade their operating system and help them shift from manual to a much more convenient way of checking their machines.

Galileo Mayola, the chief engineer of the MV Filipinas Cebu, said that the new operating system would be a big advantage to them in terms of checking their machines while on voyage as it warns them of certain ship concerns like lack of water or fuel or if the engines are heating up. This also helps in prolonging the lifespan of the ship.

Mayola said that before they had the new system, they had to do manual inspections but now with the help of the new computer system, they would be able to check the engines through the new and high-tech equipment which is assured of its best performance by the Japanese engineers who personally installed the sytem.

Shiro Kinugasa of Kunimori Engineering Works Co. said that the system has been used in Japan and has reaped good feedback from the ship owners. 

Kinugasa said that it was designed very carefully to maintain smooth operations of the ship. He said that only the MV Filipinas Cebu of CSLI has the new monitoring system in the Philippines.

The monitoring system would have a trial test this November 2, said Cokaliong.

He said that this is part of their upgrading processes which is one of the company’s moves to deliver the service and quality that the market deserves.

The P220 million MV Filipinas Cebu is one of the eight ships of CSLI which travel from Cebu to Ilo-Ilo three times a week and to Palompon once a week.

It has a capacity of 642 passengers and is the company’s second youngest ship after the MV Filipinas Osamis.

CSLI’s other ships are MV Filipinas Dinagat, MV Filipinas Surigao, MV Filipinas Dumaguete, MV Filipinas Dapitan, MV Filipinas Ilo-Ilo and MV Filipinas Maasin.

MV Filipinas Cebu was just awarded as the vessel of the year for the regional category in the first Marina Awards for Safe Travel, Excellence, and Responsible Service of the Maritime Industry Authority. The ship bested around 1,600 ships from   region 7 alone.

CSLI also won two more awards including the Coastwise Domestic Shipping Company award and the Master Mariner award which went to MV Filipinas’ captain Saviniano Fuderanan.

The awardees will be competing with other winners from the other regions in the country for the national category which will be announced at the end of this year.