Frankly speaking, we are no avid fans of some of the Philippine Ports Authority’s waterfront policies. But our regard for the PPA under General Manager Oscar Sevilla shot up by a mile when it awarded last month the Manila North Harbor concession to Harbour Centre Port Terminal Inc (HCPTI) and Metro Pacific Investments Corp – thus completing a long and contentious privatisation that certain groups wanted to jettison at the last hour. Now that the dust has settled, the PPA can probably attend to a problem that’s been squeaking for a solution: navigational aids.

The matter was serious enough for the Philippine Liner Shipping Association (PLSA) to write Mr Sevilla in late October, requesting his good office to repair or replace the entrance buoys at the North Harbor. According to the group, there had been recent near-collisions at night as ships entering or leaving the area presumably had to navigate through darkness. Whether this revelation from the domestic shipping lines jolted the PPA into immediate action is not known. What is clear is that the issue of navigational aids in general cannot be taken lightly (pardon the pun) by the authorities.

All told, the North Harbor has – or is supposed to have – one beacon mounted on the breakwater at the entrance of the channel and six lighted channel buoys strategically placed to help prevent any ship collision. We recall  that the latter were installed sometime in 2005. These are high-tech hybrid buoys, so called because they are dually powered by solar energy and ocean wave action. Two of them, however, are said to have gone missing whilst the rest need to be rehabilitated.

The upkeep of such nav-aids ought to be an ordinary housekeeping chore; it is so in other countries. But the situation in Philippine ports is a bit more complicated. The installation and maintenance of nav-aids actually form part of the Philippine Coast Guard’s official mandate. As the latter claims to be perenially short on funds, the PPA has accepted, under a memorandum of agreement, to provide the spare parts with the Coast Guard undertaking the actual repairs.

To be sure, it’s an interim solution to what is essentially a policy issue involving the delineation of functions and the allocation of state funds. It probably won’t stop the finger-pointing if and when problems relating to nav-aids arise in future in other ports, whether public or private. But it does provide a framework for action in the case of the North Harbor. As the PLSA suggested in its letter, procrastination in this instance could have serious consequences.

The HCPTI-Metro Pacific group will soon commence the lengthy process of modernising the North Harbor. What a paradox it would be if little or nothing is done to improve the safety of navigation in the waters off the country’s chief domestic port. That would be akin to constructing a world-class highway and failing to set up the necessary traffic lights and road markers.

Whilst he’s at it, Mr Sevilla might want his boys to take a hard look as well at the Manila South Harbor. The Coast Guard had called the PPA’s attention in 2008 to the state of disrepair into which nav-aids at the Philippines’ main international multi-purpose port had fallen. Apparently, nothing has been done to remedy the situation.

All this doesn’t mean that the Coast Guard chaps can just sit on their arses and watch the PPA do what they’re supposed to be doing. The problem of maritime thieves spiriting away beacons and other nav-aids is known to persist and not only in the Port of Manila. Mr Sevilla can earmark the funds needed to install new nav-aids all over the place, but that will all be for naught if some in the Coast Guard will doze off on the job. ~Barista Uno