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Last Tuesday, I had
the pleasure of joining President Arroyo and my colleagues in the
cabinet for the inauguration of the newest component of the Strong
Republic Nautical Highway (SRNH): the Central Nautical Highway,
which connects Sorsogon, Masbate, Cebu, Bohol, Camiguin and Misamis
Oriental.
Back in 2002, the President presented to the Cabinet eight work
programs, one of which was a program to reduce transport costs from
the food basket of Mindanao to the large consuming market of Luzon.
Secretary of Transportation Larry Mendoza, then Secretary of
Agriculture Cito Lorenzo, and then PPA head Al Cusi had started the
spadework on decreasing handling and wharfage costs, while DBP had
been instructed by the President to take the lead for other measures
like financing logistics, storage and port facilities in Mindanao.
Against this backdrop, the group pulled out from the DBP files an
obscure master plan of a Sustainable Logistics Development Plan
initiated by their Senior Vice President Marietto Enecio, made up of
48 Road and Roll-on/Roll-off (RORO) ferry routes. The idea was to
link our islands through highways of the sea using the ROROs as
“moving bridges”. The rest, you could say, is history.
At the inauguration of the Central Nautical Highway last Tuesday,
the President made special mention of Marietto Enecio, who has since
retired from DBP, for his important and lasting contribution to the
conceptualization and beginnings of the Strong Republic Nautical
Highway.
While on board the RORO, (from Jagna, Bohol to Balbagon, Mambajao,
Camiguin) the President and the cabinet listened to the various
stakeholders how the Strong Republic Nautical Highway has impacted
on economic growth and development in the countryside.
The participants, (among whom was Camiguin Governor JJ Romualdo, our
host for the evening) discussed the development of the Western
Nautical Highway which connects Batangas City, Calapan, Roxas,
Caticlan, Dumangas, Bacolod, Dumaguete and Dapitan. It will be
recalled that the Western route was inaugurated by the President in
2003 and we also had the good fortune to join its inaugural run.
The RORO stakeholders were unanimous in their assessment. In only
five years, the Western Nautical Highway has delivered much of its
promised benefits. The benefits include reduced transport cost,
increased regional trade, enhanced tourism and agricultural
productivity, growth in investments and development of the
countryside as well as poverty reduction.
The RORO system slashed travel time from Mindanao to Luzon from 36
hours to 24 hours.
The transport costs have likewise been reduced as a result of
service efficiency as multiple loading and unloading of goods is
eliminated. Aside from no cargo handling, the RORO is also exempt
from wharfage.
Freight and passenger cost was reduced as follows: fresh fish from
Capiz to Manila (by 31 per cent), electronics from Manila to Cebu
(by 46 %), motorcycle, from Manila to Dumaguete (by 47 %),
passengers from Batangas to Calapan (by 32 %).
Nestle Philippines claims that the transport cost savings have
enabled the company to peg their price of milk inspite of the fact
that the cost of imported raw materials has practically quadrupled
in the world market. We learned that by shifting to RORO, Universal
Robina Corporation, another food manufacturing company, is now
making 12 trips a day compared to their once a week shipment via
liner shipping.
Likewise, fish traders are all praises for the RORO because of its
multi-trip schedule, compared to the limited daily schedules of
traditional liners. Thus, fish traders can schedule their shipment
properly.
The Western Nautical Highway, it was pointed out, has opened new
markets for farmers. San Jose, Occidental Mindoro onion growers used
to sell exclusively to Manila. Fruit growers in Davao have also
found new markets for their mangoosteen and durian in Iloilo and
Bacolod.
Tourism in the RORO routes also experienced a dramatic surge.
Compared to 2003 (when the Western Nautical Highway was inaugurated)
tourists bound for Boracay grew more than 50 per cent, Iloilo by 30
per cent, Bacolod by 15 per cent and Dapitan by 200 per cent!
What’s next? With the Western Nautical Highway and the Central
Nautical Highway firmly in place, President Arroyo now wants to
complete the Eastern Nautical Highway which will begin in Pilar,
Sorsogon, and which will run through Masbate to Naval in Biliran to
Leyte Island and on to Surigao del Sur.
Indeed, the RO-RO is a tangible achievement of one of the points in
President Arroyo’s ten-point program that she announced in 2004 -
that of linking the whole country by a transportation and digital
infrastructure.
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