Maguindanao's Polloc Port bounces back from long neglect
MAGUINDANAO, Philippines -- The once poorly-managed Polloc International Port in Maguindanao is bouncing back, earning in only nine months the revenues it previously collected in six years.
So mismanaged was the port, located in a seaside district in Parang town in, that it struggled to remit P5 million yearly to the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao treasury in the years prior to 2013, with collections at from P200,000 to P1 million in some years.
The ARMM government assumed control of the port from the Philippine Ports Authority after the autonomous region was established in 1990.
Records obtained on Wednesday from the Polloc Freeport Administration indicated that the facility earned P21.9 million from January to September this year, just short by P11.1 million to offset its earnings for 2013, 2014 and 2015.
Port collections remitted to the Bureau of Customs in the past eight months also hit a record P124 million, about five times larger than what the bureau got in shares in the past four years.
Port Administrator Hexan Mabang said Wednesday the earnings of the facility started to peak in 2013 as a result of the management innovations initiated by the office of ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman.
In recent months, commercial vessels from Vietnam, Thailand, China, India and Singapore docked and unloaded cargo at the port.
“That is apart from Philippine inter-island cargo vessels that docked at the port too in the past three years,” Mabang said.
Hataman's office has allocated P150 million for the improvement of the buildings and storage facilities at the Polloc Port.
More than three million bags of high-quality cement from Vietnam were brought in to the autonomous region through the Polloc Port in the past 24 months.
The cement importations were done with permission from the BOC and the national government due to lack of supply in many ARMM provinces, where the regional government has been implementing more than P10 billion in infrastructure projects since 2014.
Some P3 billion worth of construction materials from factories in different parts of the country were also shipped to ARMM provinces through the the port in the past three years.
“The Polloc port is now a booming transshipment point for merchandise from abroad and from different ports in the country,” Mabang said.
Mabang said the port administration office now boasts of an upgraded power generation system and a water supply facility in the port. These were paid for with allocations from shipping revenues.
“This port will play a big role in the economy of Central Mindanao with the possible coming in of more foreign investors now that the Mindanao peace process of President Rodrigo Duterte is taking off,” Mabang said.
Mabang's office has also beefed up security in the port with a modern surveillance camera network that covers a 5-km radius.
“We can view from our observation post an incoming vessel even if it still about three kilometers away,” Mabang said