INTERNATIONAL Container Terminal Services Inc., the country’s largest port operator, has bagged the 25-year contract to manage and operate the state-owned Mindanao Container Terminal (MCT) in Misamis Oriental, besting two other bidders.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, ICTSI said it had received on Monday a notice from Phividec Industrial Authority—owner of the port—that the company was declared the “bidder with the highest rated responsive bid” for the concession contract.

“ICTSI is given 10 days from receipt of the notice to formally enter into a contract with Phividec,” it added. The company did not divulge details on how would it will develop the port.

The other bidders were the Asian Terminals Inc. and Harbour Centre Port Terminals Inc., both of which operate their respective flagship facilities in Manila.

The MCT is about 20 km from Cagayan de Oro City, where another terminal owned by the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) is also in operation.

Phividec, or Philippine Veterans Investment Development Corp., had failed twice to bid out the concession for the MCT, one of the most modern in Mindanao.

Government intended the privatization of operations to attract more direct callers and increase cargo traffic in the port. Phividec, at one point, even offered its cargo-handling operations to ICTSI without bidding just to attract callers, but the publicly listed firm controlled by Enrique K. Razon Jr. declined.

The MCT was earlier barred from accepting local and international cargo by the Misamis Oriental Regional Trial Court on April 27, 2004, three days after President Arroyo inaugurated the terminal.

Oro Port Cargo Handling Services, the cargo-handling operator of PPA-owned Cagayan de Oro Port, had convinced the court on the exclusivity of its contract to handle cargo in and out of Cagayan de Oro.

The court lifted, however, its temporary restraining order in early 2006. Investments started to pour into the economic zone and it generated enough cargo volume having already handled about 38,000 20-foot equivalent units in 10 months after the court allowed it to operate.

The MCT has now three regular callers, including international carrier Maersk and Magsaysay-owned National Marine Corp. and Lorenzo Shipping Corp. It has two fixed gantries and four rubber-tired mobile gantries. 

The terminal has total handling capacity of 270,000 containers per year but it has provisions for expansion, both to accommodate larger ships and more containers. Its berth length is 300 meters with a depth of 13 meters.

Ermita hit for ‘stretching’ SC ruling

SENATORS on Monday slammed Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita’s “erroneous” interpretation that a recent Supreme Court (SC) ruling effectively allowed Cabinet officials to evade Senate summons to testify in inquiries into alleged anomalies in the Arroyo administration until the publication of Senate rules covering investigations in aid of legislation.

INTERNATIONAL Container Terminal Services Inc., the country’s largest port operator, has bagged the 25-year contract to manage and operate the state-owned Mindanao Container Terminal (MCT) in Misamis Oriental, besting two other bidders.

THE National Police and the Armed Forces are discussing a proposal for the police organization to take over the anti-insurgency operations in some areas in the country.

A NATIONAL Police task force tasked to investigate cases of unexplained killings has filed 83 cases, arrested of 28 suspects, affected the surrender of 14 others and had four assailants convicted, a report to the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) revealed.

A RECENT report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed that while the Philippines has a low brain drain rate, Filipinos who reached college remain attracted in working or settling over long periods in OECD’s 29 member-countries.

ORGAN transplants in the Philippines, including those scheduled under the medical-tourism program, have been temporarily held in abeyance by the Department of Health (DOH) pending approval of a new policy being drafted that will establish a board to set the guidelines on organ transplantation in the country.

ALARMED by what he described as the “alarming rate” of incestuous relationship in the families of overseas contract workers, a legislator has filed a bill moved to criminalize incestuous sexual relations between family members, imposing stiffer penalty to guilty parties.

LABOR Day is just a month away and Sen. Mar Roxas wants to be able to present a labor law exempting minimum-wage earners from income taxes so that he will push for it as soon as Congress resumes in April.