The Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) is preparing a restructuring plan to make its operations more efficient and fast-track infrastructure projects.
PPA general manager Atty. Jay Daniel Santiago, in a chance interview with PortCalls on July 9, said it plans to “regionalize” its structure so that “regional offices can directly and immediately address specific concerns.”
Santiago said PPA is also “thinking of splitting” up the functions of the port management offices (PMO) and “having one regional group concentrating on infrastructure and another group concentrating on service quality.”
He noted that PPA has identified that “masyadong stretched out yung responsibilities ng mga PMOs [the responsibilities of the PMOs are too stretched out],” balancing the day-to-day operations of terminals and the infrastructure projects for the ports. He said that because of this situation, some functions are “sacrificed,” so they want a separate office that will focus on infrastructure projects.
Currently, PPA has 26 PMOs nationwide.
The PPA chief said making dedicated offices will “make functions more clear-cut” and fast-track completion of infrastructure projects.
Asked how the restructuring plan would affect how stakeholders deal with PPA, Santiago said “it will affect stakeholders in the sense that we will be able to provide better services.”
On timelines, Santiago said PPA is already putting together and completing the plan for presentation to the Governance Commission for Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations—as PPA being a GOCC—or to Congress, which would have to approve.
The port authority handles majority of the ports in the Philippines. PPA earlier said some 200 port projects have been completed since 2016. An additional 100 port projects are expected to be finished at the end of this year. – Roumina Pablo
