DAVAO businessmen are now being urged to lobby for the continuation of the Sasa Port modernization project of the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) which was discontinued due to the opposition of Dabawenyos who were scandalized by what they alleged to be a highly overpriced project under the past Aquino administration.
The opposition then, led by the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc., was anchored on the fact that the cost of the project earlier estimated by PPA planners to be only about P4 billion was bloated to P18 billion towards the end of the Benigno S. Aquino III administration and the approaching 2016 presidential elections.
The DCCCII held a series of public discussions on the controversy and invited high former officials of the
Department of Transportation and Communication headed by then secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya to answer questions about the controversial project. Abaya was then the president of the Liberal Party supporting Mar Roxas for president.
Current Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia confirmed that the Duterte administration has no immediate plan of reviving the project during a speech he made in the general membership assembly of the American Chamber of Commerce in Mindanao at the Marco Polo Hotel last month.
In answer to a question posed by Ferdinand Maranion, a leading Davao exporters and president of the Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. Davao chapter, Pernia said there is no immediate plan to modernize the Sasa Port.
Maranion asked Pernia why the Sasa Port was not part of Pernia’s presentation of big ticket projects of the current administration in Mindanao, which included airports, the Mindanao railway, roads and bridges worth hundreds of billions of pesos.
“There is a story behind this project,” Pernia said as he narrated how the Dabawenyos opposed the allegedly overpriced project which was eventually overtaken by the 2016 national election.
Former DCCCII officers went to Congress, particularly he Senate, to lobby against the controversial project.
Maranion whose company, Sagrex Corporation, pioneered in the exportation of microwaveable saba banana to the US and Europe, said a modernized Sasa Port is very advantageous to Dabawenyos especially local exporters and importers operating in Davao City, Davao del Sur, and Davao Occidental.
Arturo M. Milan, president of the DCCCII, said he is also in favor of reviving the modernization of Sasa, saying that Davao businessmen who understand the many strategic advantages of a modernized port should lobby with the Duterte administration to continue the project for as long as the cost is reasonable and not obviously overpriced.
Milan is familiar with port operations as he was involved for years in the operation of cement-maker Holcim as general manager in Davao and in-charge of international marketing operation.
John Carlo B. Tria, a DCCCII trustee who writes a business column syndicated in Manila and provincial newspapers, said that the Sasa modernization project ought to be included in the big-ticket projects of the current administration.
During the Amcham forum, Pernia however, said that the Sasa modernization project is not a totally closed proposition, although it is not yet prioritized.
