THE board of the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) has decided to shelve the implementation of a container monitoring system that port users and business groups claim will only jack up costs and add to bureaucratic inefficiencies.

Just last Friday, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Philippine Multimodal Transport and Logistics Association, Alliance of Concerned Truck Owners and Organizations, Alliance of International Shipping Lines and 14 other stakeholders issued a joint letter calling for the scrapping of PPA Administrative Order 4-2021, which was scheduled for implementation this year.

Among others, they said that the additional fees required by the PPA order’s Trusted Operator Program-Container Registry and Monitoring System (TOP-CRMS) and the Empty Container Storage Shared Service Facility would result in a 50-percent increase in the cost of importing goods.

These would force importers to jack up prices and jobs could even be lost, they claimed, while investors could be turned off from setting up shop in the country.

“The TOP-CRMS was deferred indefinitely by the majority of the PPA board of directors on Wednesday (Jan. 25, 2023) which is disheartening,” PPA general manager Jay Daniel Santiago told The Manila Times on Sunday.

“Regarding the concerns raised, we are not promising that the TOPCRMS is a complete solution to all these problems. We will never promise that,” he added.

“What we are saying is the problem of smuggling and other issues that may originate from the ports as a whole-of-government approach. Concerned government agencies should sit down together, talk and share information to achieve our common goals and mandates.”

Santiago had indicated that the order was on hold in an interview with reporters last week where he said the ports agency would continue with its digitalization initiatives.

“To sum up, there will be delays in implementing the TOP-CRMS,” he was quoted as saying in a newspaper report.

“But for the part of the PPA, we will continue to improve the system and focus on the regulatory impact assessment of the Anti-Red Tape Authority.”

The PPA has found support from the Confederation of Truckers Association of the Philippines and Chamber of Customs Brokers Inc., which claim that the monitoring system would address issues such as smuggling.

“The PPA project is a blessing and not a curse,” CBBI President Adones Carmona said in the newspaper report.

“The ability to track your cargo in real-time up to the return of the empty containers is an added value to customs brokers and importers.”