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SHIPPING
regulator Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) said it
has completed the review of the implementing guidelines
of Republic Act 9295, or the Domestic Shipping
Development Act, focusing more on how it can force
vessel operators to serve missionary routes.
In an
interview,
Marina administrator Vicente Suazo Jr. said the agency may
implement a “twinning rule” among those large operators
in a major route to allot at least one vessel for the
missionary route, or those sea lanes that are deemed
unprofitable.
Suazo
explained they are doing this after operators are
shunning some routes in the Strong Republic Nautical
Highways, or a string of ports all over the country that
connects Luzon to Mindanao.
“The
Land Transportation [Franchising and Regulatory Board]
did it a few years ago and they were successful, so why
can’t we apply it to the maritime sector?” Suazo
wondered aloud.
The
implementing rules and regulations (IRR) revisions are
up for discussion, or possibly approval, at this month’s
Marina board meeting, Suazo said.
Among
the other provisions that are expected to be revised are
the deployment of vessels and routes serviced, issuance
of special permits and the issuance of certificate of
public convenience for specific routes and schedules.
Efforts
to review the IRR are welcome development for some
agencies such as the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA)
and other groups like the Philippine Liner Shipping
Association (PLSA), both of which are pushing for the
regulator to start with the revisions as some of the
provisions are already hurting the industry.
A PPA
official earlier said that as a result of relaxed rules
on the routes, operators are crowding some of its ports,
particularly in major facilities such as Batangas and
Calapan in
Mindoro, and are messing up with the port schedules.
PLSA, on
the other hand, is more concerned with Marina’s issuance
of special permits to foreign vessels, especially during
times of shortage of local ships. The group claimed
Marina should clearly define the issuance of special
permits to foreign vessels and its rules on trampers,
which may kill domestic operators since these provisions
are too lax.
Before
the passage of Republic Act 9295 in 2004, Marina has
been using a prewar law, the Public Service Act of the
Commonwealth Act No. 146, approved in 1936.
This
made the new law quite liberal compared with the
Commonwealth Act on most of its policies. Government
officials, however, had placed a measure that the IRR
would have to be reviewed every two years in order to
give
Marina
some space to move to take back some new measures that
the industry or other government agencies did not
approve of.
RA 9295
was passed to jump-start the modernization of the
country’s aging shipping fleet and the shipbuilding
industry that has been relegated to doing repair works
of foreign ship owners rather than building new ones.
The law
offers a 10-year tax exemption to operators who will
introduce new vessels provided that these qualify under
the vessel-age limit required by law.
For
passenger and cargo vessels, the age limit is 15 years,
it is 10 years for tankers and five years for high-speed
passenger craft. |
