PISFA, DTI to go after fly-by-night forwarders

CEBU, Philippines - The Philippine International Seafreight Forwarders Association (PISFA-Cebu Chapter) is taking the lead to cleanse the industry of "fly-by-night" forwarders.

In close coordination with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI-7), PISFA-Cebu incoming president Carmel De Pio-Salvador said the organization will help the agency police the proliferation of illegitimate forwarders, which have already grown twice the number of the accredited cargo forwarder companies.

Salvador, who will be officially inducted tonight, said that PISFA has been inactive for quite a while now, but today as the industry faces a tougher challenge with the looming ASEAN integration, it is important to re-activate the group and industry players should be responsible in guarding their turf, at the same time eradicating illegal players.

To date, Salvador said there are 51 legitimate cargo forwarding companies who are member of PISFA, and are accredited by the Philippine Shippers Bureau.

According to Salvador, the industry will be working with DTI-7, and the Philippine Shippers Bureau in this bid to clean-up the cargo forwarding industry--initially in Cebu.

"A lot of Filipinos, and even businesses are already victimized by these unrecognized cargo forwarders. Most of them maintain very impressive websites," said Salvador in a press conference.

Earlier, Salvador already warned customers, specifically the Overseas Filipinos Workers to be careful in sending their boxes or packages, as number of fly-by-night cargo forwarders has increased in number.

In 2012, the PSB has released a list of identified blacklisted cargo forwarders operating in different countries, such as the US, Europe, Middle East, and United Arab Emirates.

On the other hand, Salvador said that those companies which are not yet members of PISFA and still have to get accreditation from PSB (Philippines Shippers Bureau), will have to comply now, otherwise they will become statistics in the PISFA-DTI cleanup.

"We are facing a lot of challenges, specifically because of the ASEAN. We need to do compliance," Salvador added.

Salvador, who owns a cargo forwarding company the Global Carrier, Phils., Inc. said that the free movement of goods within the ASEAN, and the growing transactions in the online shopping platform is seen to make cargo forwarding businesses even busier, however, only those that comply with local and international standardization requirements are going to take advantage of this opportunity.

Soon, PISFA-Cebu and DTI-7 will officially ink its collaborative program to police the legalities of the industry players. (FREEMAN)