Cruising

Pre-pandemic, Corregidor was one of my favorite destinations for day trips. When foreign friends visited Manila, I took them to Corregidor. Part of the fun was getting there on the hydrofoil from the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex.

I always wondered why such water transport services weren’t more widespread in an archipelago of 7,641 islands, with the fifth most extensive coastline in the world.

Many of these islands are accessible mainly through water transport. But the vessels available are typically motorized outriggers with a flimsy roof over one portion. Passengers must be prepared to get wet from sea spray, or even to swim in case of an accident, which happens often in our poorly regulated maritime transport sector.

For that matter, we should have developed a domestic shipbuilding industry ages ago, the way Japan and South Korea did. This failure is a reflection of our weakness in education, particularly in science and math.

Instead what we developed early in our history was our human export sector, with the deployment of Filipinos to man colonial Spain’s galleon trade between Manila and Acapulco, Mexico. And like our current overseas Filipino workers, some of those Filipino sailors settled permanently in Mexico.

Officials in Mexico City told me that their forebears learned from those migrant Filipinos the distillation process for producing tequila from the blue agave plant. Tequila is now Mexico’s iconic alcoholic beverage and a top export ($2.2 billion in exports for 2022).

We could have also developed early on our seaports for cruise tourism. Many of the world’s top tourist destinations, led by France and Spain, boast the best cruise ports.

In 2019 before COVID ruined global tourism, France had a whopping 90.9 million international visitors – the highest in the world; its tourism sector accounts for a hefty eight percent of gross domestic product. Spain came second with 83.7 million visitors, earning for the country’s tourism accommodation and food services over 70 billion euros. At over 61 pesos to the euro, that’s about P4.3 trillion.

Even tiny Singapore has one of Asia’s largest cruise terminals, the Marina Bay Cruise Center. Hong Kong and Taiwan developed their ports for cruise travelers a long time ago; Taiwan has six cruise terminals.

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In our case, in this peak travel season, what we got was an indictment of Manila’s South Harbor when a cruise ship came to dock on Nov. 30 at Pier 15 for the final leg of its 10-day Southeast Asian tour.

A passenger on the MV Norwegian Jewel wrote about their “sad, pitiful, traumatic” experience as they disembarked. Nelson Terible posted that their stops in Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia were pleasant, while their stop in Manila was “cruise chaos.”

It took them two hours to clear the South Harbor, Terible wrote, with inadequate assistance especially for many of the senior passengers, and with a long wait in the open under the pounding noonday sun for their land transportation.

The Philippine Ports Authority pinned the blame for the “isolated incident” on two private companies that handled the cruise, ship agent Ben Line Agencies, which was responsible for the logistical requirements, and shore excursion agent TravelPeople Ltd. Inc. The PPA maintained that there had been pre-arrival meetings for the “turnaround” involving the disembarkation of 2,353 passengers from the Norwegian Jewel and boarding of 2,505.

Last week, the PPA suspended the two companies for 30 days. This means the two won’t be able to provide the contracted services for another cruise tour arriving on Jan. 6, with about 3,000 travelers. Whether this will translate into another cruise chaos remains to be seen.

Terible at least noted that they had a better experience at their port of entry in Puerto Princesa, Palawan as well as in Boracay – two of the country’s top travel destinations. Among his complaints was that the folks in Manila still demanded from the passengers documents that were already presented in Puerto Princesa. That seems like the work of government bureaucrats rather than the private cruise operators.

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The “isolated incident” was particularly embarrassing as it came on the heels of the selection of the Philippines as Asia’s Best Cruise Destination 2023 during the 3rd World Cruise Awards held in Dubai last October. It was the first time that the country won the award.

As the award was announced, the Department of Tourism reported that the Philippines “is projected” to have 128 ports for cruise calls across 33 destinations, which are expected to bring to the country an estimated 101,000 passengers and 50,000 ship crew.

Those 128 ports undoubtedly include top travel destinations Boracay and Palawan as well as Siargao and Cebu.

Special attention, however, should be given to the country’s largest and busiest port, in the city of Manila.

Admittedly, developing Manila’s Port Area into an attractive cruise stop is a challenge. Since my childhood, I’ve always associated the port with greasy pavement and the stink of rotten eggs, fish and spilled fuel.

Terible wrote about an uneven plank used as a walkway from the ship, which I think is typical at the South Harbor. But I’m not sure if the hot air that reportedly hit the disembarking passengers from the condenser units of office air conditioners is part of the standard welcome for cruise travelers.

As for waiting for their ride in the open parking lot after they finally cleared the PPA, maybe the vehicles got stuck in the usual horrid traffic in the Port Area.

One look at that traffic jam can be enough to make a cruise traveler think, get me out of Manila.