Cebu traders want bigger port security zone

CEBU — The Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry is challenging the Cebu Port Authority to expand the security-compliant zone of the international port from a mere 400 meters to its full quay length of 690 meters.

"We need to be ready for more and bigger ships. We want cruise liners to come in. We must expand the security zone of our international port to accommodate our increasing economic activity," said Robert Go during Bobit Avila’s television talk show, "Straight from the Sky." Go is the president of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry whose members include some of the country’s biggest and dominant shipping players like the Aboitiz Transport System Corporation and Sulpicio Lines.

Go said that while the business community is "happy" about how the Cebu International Port successfully complied with the requirements of the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code, the chamber is not comfortable that only a portion of the port is compliant. The Office for Transportation Security issued on June 28 a compliance certificate to the CIP but it is valid only for six months covering 400 meters of quay length. Almost half of the CIP’s quay length was sliced off to accommodate Manila-bound domestic ships.

It is the chamber’s belief that Cebu will continue to lose valuable foreign shipcalls worth millions of dollars and a potential cruise market if the ISPS zone of the international port is limited to a mere 400-meter quay length.

The expanded port was what CPA general manager Mariano Martinez had Martinez’ plan also includes the cleaning up the port of squatters, vendors and illegal users, rationalizing berthing assignments, putting up perimeter fences and building separate cargo and passenger terminals. — Freeman News Service