Last week, I discussed in this column the actual situation at the roll on-roll off (RORO) terminals both in Dumangas Seaport and BREDCO in Bacolod City. The waiting time for cargo vehicles can reach up to five days and eight hours for private vehicles unlike before when it started decades back where the sea vessels are the ones waiting for the vehicles to arrive.
The RORO project serves as a nautical highway for seamless connectivity to promote local travel and improve the tourism industry and at the same time provide a much cheaper means of transport for commodities which will directly benefit the economy. However, just like the normal road networks, a congested nautical highway or the lack of sea vessels will cause damning problems. We can compare it to the road congestions which results in millions worth of losses.
One can only imagine the manhours affected and delayed production lines when roads are full of crawling vehicles due to severe traffic. Such is the case of the current situation of the roro terminals in Dumangas and Bacolod.
IMT News reached out to Maritime Industry Authority-6 (MARINA-6) to know if the problem has reached their side. Lawyer Nicole Marie Amuan, the Franchising Section Head and Public Information Officer of MARINA-6 said that their office has already received several complaints on the matter. She explained further that there are several factors that needs to be considered. These are the lack of enough sea vessels, the lack of port facilities like berthing areas and the increasing number of vehicles using the nautical highway.
However, when pressed further to identify the actions that they have undertaken, Ms. Amuan can only invite other complainants to visit their office. ENOUGH! I mean what complainants is she talking when in fact the problem is already being presented to her. Why can’t MARINA-6 including her get out of their airconditioned offices and personally monitor the current situation at the Roro terminals?
Ms. Amuan is pushing the idea that the lack of berthing spaces is a big issue and that they cannot just ask the operators to provide additional vessels. Without getting out of their offices and seeing for themselves the real situation, they will never see the available berthing spaces and the very small ratio of sea vessels compared to the vehicles queuing on the terminals.
MARINA-6 will never have the chance to know the real problem if they won’t take these concerns seriously. A system approved by them must be in place to help both the cargo and private vehicles get a fair servicing opportunity unlike when the operators are given the freedom to load the vehicles they want which is prone to abuse and favoritism.
The identification of the probable problems will never solve the said problems. MARINA-6 must do something moving forward if only to help serve the same people who pay for their salaries. As I see it probabilities will only delay actions and solutions. Unless of course, MARINA-6 is simply a “COLLECTING” authority.
