Malacañang has announced that it wants Congress to enact quickly the proposed Marine Code of 2009. This important piece of legislation has been in the works for some time, but the sinking of SuperFerry 9 last Sunday has forced the Arroyo administration to appear to be doing something. We have to caution the public against giving either Congress or President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo too much credit for this, however.
The reason is that the proposed Marine Code is in many ways a shining example of private and public sector and even international cooperation, but has also been a casualty of the one-step-forward-two-steps-backward inclinations of the present dispensation. Last July, proponents of the measure were lobbying the President to demonstrate political will by including the proposed Marine Code in her State of the Nation Address, to call attention to ongoing efforts and to ask Congress to make the bill a priority measure. She did not. There was said to be a counter-lobby against the bill on the part of domestic shippers, who would be forced to modernize their fleets and who didn’t relish the increased corporate accountability contemplated by the bill.
Operators of ports also opposed the bill because it sought to take away the Philippine Port Authority’s regulatory powers, shaking up the comfortable regulatory status quo for these operators, just when at least one of them has reached a near-mythical status in terms of supposed influence and importance among the President’s big business backers and friends.
Whatever the reasons, the plain reality is that the President refrained from endorsing the bill as a centerpiece reform program of her administration. While this didn’t actually kill the bill, it certainly took the wind out of its sails, ensuring that it wouldn’t be passed before the present Congress passes into history with the 2010 elections. Therefore, all the noise being made by the Palace to appear to do something is too little, too late, and worse, an attempt to hide its responsibility for essentially killing a bill it now wants to prioritize.
Up to the time of the SONA, the effort to craft the Marine Code of 2009, a piece of legislation meant to be an omnibus maritime code for the country, had enjoyed the President’s tacit support. Previous congressional action, including RA 9295 or the Domestic Shipping Act of 2004, had deregulated the shipping industry but failed to noticeably improve things. Other laws date back to the Commonwealth; still more have stripped national agencies of their powers and oversight, dispersing responsibilities among an alphabet soup of competing agencies. For example the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) has had its powers reduced or transferred to agencies ranging from the Department of Labor and Employment (concerning seafarers) and the Department of Trade and Industry (concerning sea freight forwarders and ship agents) to the Philippine Coast Guard (for determining the seaworthiness of vessels).
Marina Administrator Maria Elena Bautista had proposed returning these functions to Marina while undertaking a comprehensive consolidation and updating of maritime legislation to be enshrined in an omnibus Merchant Shipping Act (the Marine Code of 2009). The law would authorize Marina to handle all concerns ranging from seafarers to shippers to ship owners, including judicial and arbitration powers which had the potential of making the Philippines a regional if not world center for such things.
The process received international funding and support from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation through the Norwegian Maritime Directorate (Norad/NMD) and involved experts from the University of the Philippines Public Administration Research and Development Foundation Inc. (UPPAF), and the Center for Research and Communication Foundation Inc. of the University of Asia and the Pacific (CRC/UAP) as technical advisers and consultants to craft the necessary legislation.
But the President decided not to make the call to pass the proposed bill last July.
