Maguindanao port yearly profit continues to soar

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines — The income of the revitalized Maguindanao Provincial Polloc Port, so mismanaged in the past, has soared by dozens of fold in the past four years.

The port, located in Parang town in the first district of Maguindanao, is a strategic gateway to trading hubs in Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, both in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and to business centers in North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and the cities of Cotabato and Tacurong, all in Region 12.

Documents supplied on Saturday by Hexsan Mabang, port administrator, indicated that the port only earned P695,411 in 2013, not even one-sixth of its P3.6 million collection in 2014.

“There was a tremendous increase in its income from 2013 to 2014 owing to the reforms initiated by the present ARMM administration as part of an effort to make the port become very functional,” Mabang said on Satuday.

The Polloc Port earned P5 million in 2015 and, subsequently, had a total income of P18.7 million from 2016 to 2017.

The office of ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman forged a management cooperation agreement with the Bureau of Customs in 2015 in a bid to hasten the recovery of Polloc Port from its moribund condition that he inherited from carefree predecessors when he got to the helm of the regional government in December 2011.

Functions and powers of the BOC are not among those that the national government has devolved to ARMM as provided for by its regional charter, the Republic Act 9054.

“Despite not having customs and tariff powers, the present ARMM administration is gaining headway in reforming the operation of the Polloc Port,” Mabang said.

The present port management has remitted to the regional treasury P28.2 million worth of wharf fees generated from 2014 to 2017, something unprecedented in the 28-year history of ARMM.

Previous port officials only had more than P500,000 worth of annual remittance to the regional treasury in years preceding 2014.

A printed matrix from Mabang’s office also showed that the past port management only remitted only almost P80,000 worth of customs and tariff fees to the BOC in 2013.

The present ARMM administration generated for the BOC a total of P19.2 million revenues in 2014, the matrix indicated.

“There was a very big leap in collections of revenues due the BOC, from a measly amount collected in 2013 to a very big amount collected in 2014. The collections were remitted promptly to the bureau,” Mabang said.

Government fund transfer documents revealed that the BOC earned in the past four years P282.1 million worth of revenues from the port via its present management, operating under the control of the ARMM regional government.

“Our income records are open to scrutiny by the media or any interested party anytime,” Mabang said.

The present port management had also paid the Bureau of Internal Revenue P4.7 million worth of taxes from 2014 to 2017, about seven times double than the payments facilitated by managers in prior years.

Only three foreign vessels berthed at the Polloc Port in 2013, according to records of the Coast Guard and the Regional Police Office-ARMM.

From 2014 to 2017, a total of 50 large merchant ships flying foreign national flags docked at the Polloc Port to unload merchandise from different Asian states.