DOTC ULAT SA BAYAN CITES PPA’S FEATS IN DAVAO REGION
DAVAO CITY – Officials of the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) headed by Undersecretary Guiling Mamondiong here met with the national and local tri-media representatives on February 24 to drumbeat DOTC’s accomplishments for the last decade, featuring the sterling performance of Davao Port, among others.
In the countryside, the DOTC is represented by its Regional Management Council (RMC) which is composed of the heads of offices of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB), Land Transportation Office (LTO), Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA), Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) and the Telecommunications Office (TELOF).
PPA Port District Manager for Southern Mindanao (SoMin) Abdussabor Sawadjaan is currently the DOTC RMC-XI Co-Chairperson.
Dubbed as Ulat Ng Bayan and moderated by Philippine Information Agency-XI Director Efren Elbanbuena, the forum highlighted the individual as much as the collective milestones of the line agencies under the department.
USEC Mamondiong seized the brief opportunity to broadcast flagship projects implemented in Region-XI, particularly the intensified development of the Davao Baseport as one of the priority international and export-oriented ports of the State of the Nation Address (SONA) of the President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for the past decade through the rationalized Mindanao Super Region concept.
Otherwise known as the Sasa Wharf, the Davao Port has proven tremendous growth despite the looming global economic crisis affecting the maritime industry, Port Management Office (PMO)-Davao Manager Atty. Christian Santillan reported.
Davao baseport’s foreign container traffic grew positively at an average of 12.21% yearly from 2001 and 2009, reaching a total of 2.67 Million TEUs. With this performance, it is actually the third best performing port in foreign container traffic in the country and the only port outside of Metro Manila to do so, the top being Manila International Container Terminal (MICT) and South Harbor, respectively.
The implication of above mentioned figures is that demands for fresh bananas for foreign markets such as Japan, HongKong, Singapore, New Zealand the Middle East and some parts of Europe continue to be up, pushing increases in banana production, the region’s top export commodity by 5% in 2009 vis-à-vis 2008 particularly in the Davao Region according to the Department of Agriculture Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (DA BAS).
Bananas have also been priming up the region’s Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) which posted positively by 12.2% growth in 2008 based on reports by the National Statistical Coordinating Board although it did not offset the decline in palay, corn and other crops for the period.
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Correspondingly, as more refrigerated container vans enter and leave the Sasa Wharf, its total cargo throughput have also risen substantially from 7.4 Million Metric Tons (MMT) in 2001 to 9.12 MMT in 2009 with an average of 2.76% growth annually.
In 2009, DOTC signed a partnership with the Department of Tourism (DOT) to launch the Mindanao Tourism and Transport Highway (MTTH) which embodies the inter-modal links to boost tourist arrivals thereby creating a highly conducive atmosphere for domestic businesses to flourish, mostly by the maritime sector. PPA comes to the forefront in improving its major gateways also in line with its 2010 vision of meeting international standards in facilities and services.
The MTTH, likewise captures the government’s stance in narrowing gaps in terms of connectivity of the inter-island destinations from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, and vice versa through the Strong Republic Nautical Highway (SRNH) using mostly the Roll On Roll Off (RoRo) capable ports for faster, more frequent and cheaper sea transport run by the PPA through the Road RoRo Transport System (RRTS).
RRTS aims to significantly reduce the cost of transport of goods and people shipped through self-powered vehicles such as trucks, buses or private cars by doing away with wharfage and handling fees for inter-island destinations. It also lessens travel time of passengers onboard fastcrafts by limiting longer stopovers observed in conventional boat trips.
To manifest PPA’s commitment to the SRNH-RRTS mandate in Davao Region, the PDO-SoMin completed RoRo ports developments in Babak (Davao del Norte), Banay-Banay, Lupon and Mati (Davao Oriental), Maco and San Isidro (Compostela Valley Province) in the last 10 years amounting to PhP 215 M.
PMO-Davao Port Manager Atty. Christian Santillan (Top R)
(Top) (Counterclockwise Fr. L): Sasa Wharf Expansion, and the Babak, Mati and Banay-Banay Banay RoRo Capable Ports
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