By Edge Davao Staff
TRAVELERS and other users of the Sasa international wharf and the Davao International Airport, once the pride of Dabawenyos, are complaining that both world-class facilities are now in a state of disrepair. Their condition continues to deteriorate, but concerned authorities have done little to improve the situation despite the billions of pesos that corporations and individual passengers pay in terminal, wharfage, storage and other fees levied on users of the two facilities.
Executives of airlines using the Francisco Bangoy International Airport, sometimes called the Davao International Airport, are complaining about the terminal’s sorry state.
Its roof has been leaking for more than a year. The air-conditioning system for some boarding and deplaning tubes is not working.
An example is tube no. 4 which has not been used due to wornout tires. No replacement for the busted tires has been made for a year now, an airline executive told Edge Davao.
Leaking roof,
flooding
Davao newsman Serafin Ledesma Jr. reported that due to the leaking roof the airport, the baggage claim area is usually flooded after a heavy downpour. Arriving from Manila one night three weeks ago, Ledesma experienced flooding near the carousel area. He said one passenger waiting for his luggage was bitten by a centipede which was dislodged from its lair by floodwaters.
Ledesma expressed apprehension over the possibility of passengers being electrocuted should floodwaters reach the level of electrical convenience outlets and other similar installations.
Congested pier
full of potholes
On the other hand, the Sasa international wharf is not any better.
Users have criticized the deteriorating condition of the road system and congestion at the pier due to the ill-advised practice of stacking loaded and empty containers one on top of another in the limited space of the pier under the jurisdiction of the Davao port management unit of the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA).
Documents obtained by Edge Davao indicate that among those incensed by the poor condition of the Sasa wharf are growers and exporters of cavendish bananas. The industry reportedly accounts for most of the millions in wharfage and related fees earned by the wharf annually.
A high official of a banana company complained that the road system in the pier is full of potholes that have caused a number of accidents involving giant hauling trucks delivering cargoes for export.
Among those who have lamented over the Sasa wharf are banana companies which are members of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA).
In a recent letter to lawyer Christian V. Santillan, manager of the PPA port management office (PMO), the PBGEA complained of the “gaping holes in the port which, if not repaired soonest, may cause the loading trucks to keel over, damaging both vehicles and container vans. This could also mean considerable losses.”
A source told Edge Davao that at least four trucks laden with bananas for export have keeled over brought about by poor state of the road system thereat.
Adding to the sorry state of affairs in the pier area are two mobile x-ray units belonging to the Bureau of Customs occupying precious space at the pier despite being seldom utilized to scan container vans suspected of bearing contraband cargoes such as smuggled goods through misdeclaration, and anti-social items like drugs, firearms and explosives.
Aside from the two mobile x-ray units, a third and even more expensive x-ray machine had been lying idle inside the Acquarius Container Yard (ACY), specifically in the Designated Examination Area (DEA), which was closed by Customs district collector Anju Castigador in February last year, a move that is being contested in court, aside from earning the Customs official and some other BOC employees charges of alleged graft and corruption before the Office of the Ombudsman. The complaints were filed by ACY operator Rodolfo “Popong” Reta.
The non-use of the DEA x-ray machine and the under-utilization of the two others have been criticized by anti-corruption groups and advocates of transparency in governance as a criminal waste of valuable government resources.
The People’s Alliance Against Corruption (PAAC) declared during a recent forum that the x-ray machines, worth more than half a billion pesos, should have been used to detect smuggling activities in the waterfront, thereby helping to increasing government revenues from import and export activities.
The closure of the DEA has worsened congestion in the Sasa wharf because all the containers are now congesting the pier instead of being parked at the ACY to await examination by the DEA. PAAC members led by convenor Mussolini Lidasan said they are wondering why the PPA under Santillan allows this situation when that agency, through letters, certifications and indorsements in the past, had insisted that the wharf no longer had availanle space for containers.
On the other hand, the number of container vans handled by the wharf had more than doubled during the last four years – from 20,200 FEUS in 2006 to 46,400 FEUS in 2010.
The PBGEA had pointed, in a letter last month to Santillan, to the costly delays in the flow of export cargo.
“It has been established that during peak hours, the whole process takes more than two (2) hours to complete for every van,” PBGEA told the PPA official.
Earlier, a team of investigators from Ombudsman-Manila reported that the mobile x-ray machines were not used the whole time that they were at the wharf, at least in the two afternoons that they visited the area incognito. The same team confirmed that certain parts of the wharf were muddy and dangerous to motor vehicles and the mobile x-ray machines.
Ms. Natividad Amorillo of the PPA, however, said that her agency had embarked on an expansion project to improve service at the waterfront, although she refused to elaborate, saying that only port manager Santillan could speak for the PPA.
As for the international airport, among its many problems is the lack of baggage carts. A source told this paper that the close to 100 carts availablenow is not enough, considering that a 747 plane alone has more than 3OO passengers who may need carts. The problem worsens if two or three passenger planes land one after the other and the problem of lack of carts is multiplied by that much.
No less than former President Gloria Arroyo blew her top when she discovered for herself that one of the comfort rooms in the terminal have toilet paper and related sanitary items.
A former official of the city government said the airport did not really have a budget for such supplies. It is the city government supplying such items and other materials for the upkeep of the P5.7-billion facility. He said the city government under then Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte also provided some personnel to maintain cleanliness and security in the airport.
However, all these were stopped when the national government objected to the proposal of the city to establish a Davao international airport authority which would have autonomy in the operation and control of the airport like the Cebu-Mactan International Airport Authority.
It was learned that then congressman Vincent J. Garcia of Davao City’s 2nd District had filed a bill for the creation of the airport authority as a follow-up of a similar proposal filed by his father, former congressman Manuel M. Garcia. However, allies of the Arroyo administration in the House of Representatives did not support the bill, ostensibly because Vincent’s being a member of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC).
Also being criticized is the liberal policy of the Department of Transportation and Cmmunication (DOTC) and its subordinate agency, Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), in allowing hanging and fixed tarpaulin advertisements to be displayed willy-nilly in the airport premises, thereby ‘uglifying’and cheapening its overall appearance, in the eyes of foreign visitors.
Some critics ridicule the airport as the “Smart International Airport” or “Globe International Airport” referring to the heavy concentration of ads of the two competing telecommunications giants.
