GMA urged to cut port fees

President Arroyo was asked yesterday to order a reduction in port cargo handling fees to bring down the prices of commodities being brought to Metro Manila from the provinces.

In making the urgent appeal, Rep. Willie Buyson Villarama (Aksyon Demokratiko, Bulacan) said reducing port fees could also head off a crisis at the Manila ports spawned by the refusal of distributors to pay the higher rates.

Villarama, who was chief of staff of Mrs. Arroyo when she was Vice President, reminded the Chief Executive that she had promised to cut port cargo handling fees by at least 20 percent effective on Wednesday, Labor Day.

He said her adviser on job generation, Luis Lorenzo Jr., even announced her decision at the 4th Mindanao Food Conference in Cagayan de Oro City last April 21.

Conference participants were happy to hear the news because it meant that they could ship their products to Manila at a lower cost, he added.

However, last Friday, in a meeting of the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) board presided over by Transportation and Communications Secretary Pantaleon Alvarez, PPA general manager Alfonso Cusi refused to carry out the presidential instruction, Villarama revealed.

He said Cusi reasoned out that he has yet to receive the President’s order.

"Something is wrong somewhere. The President issues a directive and the concerned official does not get it. Either that or PPA is defying a presidential order," he said.

Mrs. Arroyo should re-issue her directive and make it stick this time, he said.

Villarama pointed out that because of the high port cargo handling fees, members of the Distribution Management Association of the Philippines and the Coalition for Shipping and Ports Modernization have decided to withhold payment of the higher fees.

He recalled that in the past, distributors have successfully carried out such protest action.

But if the PPA will insist on the "onerous" fees, confrontation between the two sides could result in a significant delay in the release of goods from the port and an artificial shortage of these products, he said.

The President should promptly intervene to avert this crisis, he said. – Jess Diaz