Maintenance

Len Bautista of Marina says that our domestic shipping fleet has an average age of well over three decades. That is probably true.

In which case, our domestic shipping fleet is just like our domestic bus fleet. Both are composed largely of discarded units, reconditioned and refitted then redeployed on our streets. We have floating coffins; and rolling coffins as well.

But when our buses conk out, as they do daily in our busiest roads such as Edsa, they are mere nuisance. Passengers disembark grumbling. Traffic snarls. Motorists cuss.

Sometimes, there are deaths too. When tragedy happens, the most usual excuse is that the brakes failed.

But that should not happen. Every responsible motorist knows that brakes are not supposed to fail. They should be checked regularly and replaced when necessary. They fail only when maintenance fails.

But we cut costs. We do not have a maintenance culture. We drive vehicles until they break down. We allow diesel engines to belch black smoke and ply their routes without proper maintenance being performed.

The reason we buy old bus units is that safety regulations allow bus operators to do so. And the reason for that is to keep fares low even if undue hazard is created in the streets. For the most part, we play games with death if only to keep fares low.

That is the same excuse applied to domestic shipping. In order to keep rates low, we allow reconditioned ships to ply passenger-dense routes. There is reluctance to force ship operators to observe regular maintenance schedules. No one checks if the crews are adequately trained or keen on the job.

But the fares are low — and that is all that seems to matter. Raise the fares in order to raise the standards and there will be the usual suspects marching in the streets.

We want cheap; we court danger.

When I briefly attended board meetings of the National Development Corporation, I batted for international classing of our domestic shipping. Everybody else said that would be too costly. International classing requires not only the standard checks for seaworthiness but also the observance of strict maintenance and safety procedures.

I lost the argument because everybody else said it would be uneconomical. The other side seems to be saying: we are a Third World country; therefore we can do with Third World standards for safety.

About a dozen sea tragedies later, I am sure I will still lose the argument for international classing of our shipping fleet. Our shipping operators do not have the financial muscle to purchase brand new vessels. Our shipping clientele is unwilling to pay higher fares for better maintenance and safety protocols. No one wants fares to cost a peso more.

It is this sort of mindset that invites tragedies. Whenever tragedy strikes, it is always most convenient to blame sloppy shipping companies. No one blames a public that refuses to pay more for safer service.

The roll-on, roll-off (ro-ro) vessel that sunk off the Batangas coast over the holidays can only be blamed on two factors: the stupidity of the crew and the lack of safety vigilance on the part of the operators. The ship, it appears, was leaking when it left port; then the crew did not bother to lash the cargo safely thinking this was a short journey anyway. The board of marine inquiry convened for the purpose of investigating this latest tragedy will soon decide which of the two factors caused that particular tragedy.

After the results of that inquiry is pronounced, we will most likely still be allowing decrepit ships to leave port and badly-trained crews to man them. The reason this will be so is that it is costlier to do otherwise. If we apply international safety standards tomorrow, much of our domestic shipping fleet will be grounded, causing great harm to our economy. If we pay more decent rates to our merchant marine so that the best of them do not go abroad to work, this will reflect in higher fares.

We want cheap; we court danger.

The Batangas ro-ro tragedy is particularly dismaying for me because it undermines confidence in the nautical highways system we have been trying to build. Over the past nine years, from where I sit at the Development Bank of the Philippines, I have kept a really interested eye on the expansion of the ro-ro system. This system is central to improving the logistical network that will allow our otherwise isolated island economies to prosper. The modern logistical network is crucial to a more even development of our archipelago.

It is not true, as those obscurantist theories of our underdevelopment say, that the uneven development of our archipelago is due to some malevolent thing called “imperialism.” The development of our regions is uneven because of sheer topography. Island economies cut off from the main avenues of commerce stagnate. The solution is the provision of a modern logistical system that drastically brings down the costs of inter-island commerce.

The ro-ro system has brought down transport costs by at least 30%. That means that small enterprises in the island economies are able to trade more and consumers benefit from the savings in transport costs as well as the greater abundance of consumers.

What we need to do now is to allow incremental increases in fares to support safer and better vessels. Those increases will be more than offset by the great savings brought about by a well-functioning nautical highway system.

If we scrimp unduly to the point of making the system unsafe, the potential benefits of an efficient nationwide logistical system will be lost in the collapse of public confidence in the network. That will be economically counterproductive and will erode the sustainability of the system in the long run.