Poor health forced us to take a respite from blogging – indeed, from any kind of productive work. This was an unwanted force majeure, and it’s good to be back if only because the Philippine maritime community, with all its petty intrigues and individual foibles, has been a constant source of amusement for us. On the other hand, nothing really important seems to have happened in our absence – apart from one development whose long-term significance most Filipinos couldn’t care less about.

We refer to the Philippine Ports Authority’s decision to award the 25-year Manila North Harbor concession to Harbour Centre Port Terminal Inc (HCPTI) and its minority joint venture partner, Metro Pacific Investments Corp. Until they got the notice of award in early October, HCPTI officials were actually fidgety, unsure whether the PPA would again begrudge the HCPTI/Metro Pacific group what it deserved in the first place. The lack of confidence is understandable. Certain parties had wanted to stop the contract award at all cost through a nasty and well-funded press campaign that sought to villify HCPTI in particular.

Well, the concession agreement was finally signed yesterday, 19th November. In truth, the PPA had no choice. For agency officials to have decided otherwise would have meant collaborating with those who were out to subvert the tender process. Even so, we take our hats off to PPA general manager Oscar Sevilla and his underlings for doing the right thing. The central Philippine port of Cebu may be the country’s domestic shipping hub, with an estimated 90% of the inter-island fleet home-ported there. But the Manila North Harbor is the life-line connecting the Visayas and Mindanao regions to Metro Manila and the main island of Luzon itself. Delaying its privatisation and development would have been an act of economic sabotage.

Aside from this singular development, the past 90 days have been a quiet, uneventual time for the country’s maritime industry. We did miss the 10th Asia Pacific Manning & Training Conference that took place at the Sofitel Hotel from 4 to 5 November. Although we’re a bit queasy about conventions in general, it would have been nice to drop in. The annual conference, after all, is organised by Informa, the same group that publishes the world’s oldest shipping newspaper. It is also the only time of the year when Manila’s crewing community gets the chance to interact as a group with foreign shipowners and shipmanagers.

Otherwise, it has been a quotidian existence for maritime players. Cargo volumes in key Philippine ports remain paltry, although the US, traditionally the country’s main trading partner, is now officially out of recession. The Philippines still has no shipbuilding industry to speak of, notwithstanding the presence of Korean-owned Hanjin at the Subic Bay Freeport  (more on this in a future blog). Crewing agencies and maritime training centres continue to make hay even though the sun shines less brightly these days because of the slowdown in world shipping. And corruption and fecklessness are rife as ever in the local maritime bureaucracy. Given all this, a round of billiards with our favourite old salt is a refreshing change. ~Barista Uno