DAVAO CITY—The business community here, as well as private port operators in the region, on Friday warned against the government’s single but big-budget focus on the main government
seaport here pointing at the traffic gridlock around the place that could hasten the situation similar to the port congestion in Manila.
The Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc.
(DCCCII) said congestion could draw back whatever the gains of a modernization of the Sasa wharf, and told the Department of Trade and Industry official that its port-improvement plan should be spread rather to the other ports around the Davao Gulf to decongest traffic in the area.
“We welcome the government proposal to modernize it [Sasa wharf] but concentrating the operation only around it and leaving untended all the other major but private ports would only tend to slow down further the already-congested Sasa area,” DCCCII President Antonio de la Cruz said.
“Remember that the airport is also in Sasa,” he added.
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) supported the argument and warned the Department of Transportation and Communications that improvement of the Sasa wharf would attract more congestion.
“We can hardly even go out of our office because of the congestion in Sasa and affecting all the rest of neighboring areas,” de la Cruz said.
He said that the DPWH has spent a lot of money in providing access roads and road widening in the other ports “but which seems to be not being utilized.”
“I would rather suggest that port improvement should be focused in spreading out the operations to the other existing ports around the region,” he said.
“It is faster to get to our place in Hijo Plantation in Tagum City from the airport, than in going to the downtown area in Davao from the airport,” said Jacobo C. Mantecon, vice president for industrial port services of the Hijo Resources Corp.
The commentaries were aired during the meeting of the technical working group of the south and central Mindanao corridors of the Mindanao Development Authority.
Transportation Assistant Secretary Rene Limcaoco said he welcomed the comments of the private sector as he also suggested during the meeting that “government may opt to let the open enterprise work.”
“Let shippers decide on where to dock,” he said.
He also clarified to reporters later in the meeting on Thursday that he would let this policy work than what the Regional Development Council was inclined to ask the agency “to rationalize and integrate the operations of all ports around the Davao Gulf.”
“The project would proceed,” he said.
Limcaoco said the prequalification bid process has started and said three parties had bought prequalification forms. The deadline for submission of the bid forms would be on June 30.
The project was estimated to cost P17 billion, one of the biggest outside the Metro Manila port projects.