ATS grounding to affect our fragile economy

There we go again, the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) suddenly decides to ground all the vessels of the Aboitiz Transport System (ATS) because of the sinking of the SuperFerry 9. Why is MARINA grounding the other ATS vessels? Have they found a defect in the other vessels that presents a clear and present danger to all passengers who take the Aboitiz vessels? Thus grounding ATS would prevent a similar occurrence with the other vessels?

Of course, officials of ATS didn’t immediately stop their operations to comply with grounding order, not because they are disobeying it, but rather when this story was headlined by all the national newspapers, ATS still didn’t get the official order from MARINA.

These days, we have to take extra care in jumping into such rash conclusions because stopping the operations of a giant shipping firm will result in a ripple effect to our country’s economy. I reckon that MARINA officials decided on ground the ATS fleet so that they can tell the Filipino people that MARINA is doing something about the sinking of the SuperFerry 9.

I have written volumes of articles about the need for our legislators (either the Senate or in Congress) to craft out a law creating the Philippine version of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) that would investigate all sea, air and land disasters. Alas, I’m only a small-time columnist and my articles were never given any importance, even by our local congressmen, who would rather pass laws to allow Greyhound racing in Cebu!

It’s been a year since the Sulpicio Lines ship M/V Princess of the Stars disaster and yet there is still no official word or finding as to why that vessel sunk at the height of Typhoon “Frank”. It should not be difficult for MARINA to decide that the typhoon caused the sinking of that vessel but still, no official word from MARINA.

How many times have we said that the MARINA is the judge, jury and executioner of all commercial shipping in this country. Hence, rightly or wrongly, whatever decisions that the Marine Inquiry for any disaster would come out with will always be subject to a lot of suspicions. Alas, we can only blame our Senators and Congressmen for not having the intellect even to copy the NTSB agency of the United States, something that the Philippine government always does when it cannot come up with its own. Then to add to our woes, they are telling us that there’s a need to come up with 350 more Congressmen for this Legislature so we will not be under-represented?

I’m sure that by press time, the ATS would have already gotten the grounding order of MARINA and would comply with the order. But let me now touch on the ripple effect of the ATS closure to our fragile economy, where so far the Philippines have been largely spared from the worldwide recession. With the Sulpicio Lines still not operating passengers vessels due to the sinking of the M/V Princess of the Stars, and with the grounding of the ATS, that means the only vessels going from Cebu to Manila and many other important ports of calls would be Negros Navigation, which has very few vessels in operation.

Thus the grounding of ATS would clog our ports with cargoes that need to be shipped to and from their points of destination. Law of supply and demand means cargo rates would suddenly increase. And that means prices of basic products would also increase all the way to the retail or sari-sari stores. Surely MARINA was thinking about this when they issued ATS the grounding order?

As for the passengers, they would have no choice but to take the airlines to and from the places where they want to go. While our domestic air carriers are in the midst of a price war, this sudden influx of passengers might be the windfall that they’ve been waiting for and poof! Suddenly, airfares would no longer be as cheap as they are today, thanks again to the MARINA’s grounding of ATS.

In air crashes, like the ones we see on National Geographic channel, whenever there are a series or a number of crashes of airplanes coming from the same model and manufacturer, that is the time when the NTSB orders a grounding of these planes possibly because of a defective part that could endanger the other still flying aircrafts. Unfortunately, MARINA hasn’t seen anything near this problem with the Aboitiz vessels. So why ground ATS?

Again, let me say that when I took the SuperFerry 12 to Manila and back to Cebu, I observed how the life rafts were placed and where we can find life jackets, which we found in many places. But MARINA still has to tell us why the SuperFerry 9 sunk before they even ground any vessel.

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