The ancient Greeks consulted the Delphi Oracle. Modern-day Filipinos, at least the more superstitious ones, turn to fortune-tellers plying their trade near the Quiapo Church in downtown Manila. No need, however, for Delphi priestesses or Third World soothsayers to see where the Philippines’ maritime industry is headed in 2011. The signs are all over the place. Here’s our forecast based on what we had witnessed in 2010 and the years before that:.
No significant improvement in overall container throughput. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Central Bank) has admitted that it may have to lower its export and import growth targets for 2011 (from 10% and 18%, respectively) in light of the economic problems that beset the US and Europe. Sounds like a bad omen for the country’s major ports but does it really matter? Philippine container volumes have always been pitifully small vis-as-vis other Asian ports. Filipinos are simply not producing and exporting as much as the Chinese, the Thais, the Malaysians and other Asian peoples. With national manufacturing activity still concentrated in Metro Manila and adjacent areas south of the metropolis, expect the Subic, Batangas Phase II and Mindanao container terminals to continue chasing after the elusive boxes.
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Continued foreign dominance in the shipbuilding sector. For the past several years, local shipbuilding has been squarely in the hands of three foreign players: Tsuneishi of Japan, Keppel of Singapore and Hanjin of South Korea. It will remain so in the foreseeable future. An indigenous shipbuilding industry no longer exists. It died during the Marcos era with the collapse of the Philippine Drydock Corp, sister company of the Bataan Shipyard & Engineering Co (Baseco) and one of the largest shipbuilding yards in Southeast Asia then.
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Domestic passenger shipping to stay in the doldrums. Competition from domestic airlines with their cheap promo fares has all but killed interisland passenger shipping. Asian Terminals Inc’s Eva Macapagal Super Terminal at the Manila South Harbor, which used to be a profit centre for the company, sums up the fate of this sector. In a real sense, the shipping lines have only themselves to blame. Their poor safety record, substandard onboard service and treatment of passengers as cattle to be transported are driving more Filipinos to the airline ticket counters. The only bright spot is the cross-bay ro-ro ferry business, which will continue to thrive.
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Maintenance of the status quo in the overseas shipping sector. This means, as before, a stagnant ocean-going fleet mostly made up of foreign-owned bottoms temporarily registered under the Philippine flag through the bareboat charter scheme. There will be little or no growth at all in fleet size for two reasons. First, the obsession with crewing other nations’ fleets, which has deflected the Filipinos’ attention from the need to develop their own fleet. Second, the failure of the Maritime Industry Authority to revitalise overseas shipping through the opening up of the register. A set-up akin to Singapore’s international register, which is liberal but non-FOC, seems the only way for the Philippines to go. It will never happen, however, because some maritime minds are narrow.
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More direct participation by foreigners in the local crewing business. The phenomenon has been going on for years: foreign shipowners and shipmanagers dumping their local manning agency to put up their own, as tanker specialist Odjfell did when it gave up on Magsaysay not too long ago. Don’t expect the trend to stop anytime soon. As the scramble for qualified ship officers continues, some foreign employers will want to have a greater say in how their crew are selected, hired, trained and managed. Fortunately for them, there’s no dearth of Filipinos willing to act as dummies with the title of company president.
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Tighter competition in the maritime education and training sectors. The room is cramped, what with some 75 training centres and 90-odd maritime schools already in operation. But seafarers’ training and education is lucrative business, so expect a few more players to jump in and join the party in the near future. The outcome can only be more cutthroat competition and lower quality standards. On the other hand, the more, the merrier.
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No abatement in corruption in the maritime bureaucracy. Despite President Benigno Aquino III’s vow to put an end to corruption, all signs point to its continuance, in one form or another, in all state agencies involved in the maritime industry. The roots of the problem are the growing materialism in Philippine society and the concomitant erosion of traditional values. How solve the problem? That’s the great unknown not even the Delphi Oracle may divine. ~Barista Uno
