LINER SHIPPING ROUTE STUDY FINAL REPORT VOLUME IV NORTHERN ISLANDS SHIPPING SERVICES EVALUATION REPORT November 1994 Submitted to United States Agency for International Development Manila, Philippines Support for Development Program II: Philippine Sea Transport Consultancy Project No. 492-0450 Prepared by Nathan Associates Inc. under Contract No. 492-0450-C-00-2157-00 FOREWORD The Liner Shipping Route Study (LSRS) and the MARINA and SHIPPERCON STUDY (MARSH Study) were conducted, during 1993-1994, under the Philippine Sea Transport Consultancy (PSTC). The Final Report of the LSRS comprises 14 volumes and the Final Report of the MARSH Study comprises 5 volumes. This technical assistance was made possible through the support provided by the Office of Program Economics, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission in the Philippines. The views, expressions and opinions contained in this and other volumes of LSRS Final Report are those of the authors and of Nathan Associates, and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Number 1. INTRODUCTION & SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 1 Introduction 1 Summary cf Findings 3 Mindoro 3 Cargo Services 3 Passenger Services 4 Marinduque 6 Cargo Services 6 Passenger Services 6 Catanduanes 6 Cargo Services 6 Passenger Services 7 Romblon 7 Cargo Services 7 Passenger Services 8 Masbate 9 Cargo Services 9 Passenger Services 9 2. 'NORTHERN ISLANDS LINER SHIPPING & FERRY SERVICES 11 Introduction 11 Shipping Operators, Routes & Vessels 12 Route Capacity 19 3. CARGO SERVICES EVALUATION 27 Introduction 27 Cargo Traffic 27 Cargo Services Standtids 32 Mindoro 32 Grains 32 Fruits & Vegetables 34 Fishery Products 35 Other Products 37 Marinduque 38 Vegetables 38 Fishery Products 40 Other Products 40 Catanduanes 41 Romblon 42 Fruits 42 Fishery Products 43 Livestock 44 Other Products 44 Masbate 44 Fishery Products 45 Oattle 45 Copra 46 Charcoal 46 Handicrafts 46 Consumer Goods 47 4. PASSENGER SERVICES EVALUATION 49 Introduction 49 Passenger Traffic 49 Mindoro 49 Marinduque 54 Romblon 54 Masbate 56 Catanduanes 60 Bicol Peninsula 60 Passenger Service Standards 60 Mindoro 60 Marinduque 72 Catanduanes 75 Romblon 76 Masbate 78 Passenger Service Fares 83 5. FACTORS AFFECTING SERVICE ADEQUACY 87 Introduction 87 Mindoro Island 87 Marinduque -89 Romblon Province 90 Masbate Province 91 Catanduanes Island 91 6. APPROACH TO IMPROVING SERVICE ADEQUACY 93 Institutional Responsibilities & Policies 93 Action Plan for Northern Island Shipping Service Improvement 97 Mindoro 97 Marinduque 98 Catanduanes 99 Romblon Province 99 Masbate 99 ANNEXES Annex A Results of Northern Islands Cargo Services Surveys Annex B Northern Island Passenger Survey Results PORT OF BATANGAS Cargo Lrucks and jeepneys lined up to board the Ro-Ro vessel Cargo jeep loaded with veqetables and fruits arriving at Batangas 1. INTRODUCTION & SUMMARY OF FINDINGS Introduction The terms of reference (TOR) for the Liner Shipping Route Study (LSRS) specify, as one objective of the study, that the LSRS shall "survey and review the adequacy of existing liner shipping services, including ferry services, in the Philippines, and ... identify priorities for new franchises and franchise amendments to provide expanded services, new types of services, and better standards of service". The workscope section of the TOR states that, "The LSRS must identify, from shipping operators reports on operations, from SHIPPERCON records, and from extensive field interviews with users of cargo and passenger liner services, the standards of services being performed on each liner shipping route, including especially the availability of appropriate sirvices, convenience of schedule, service reliability, passenger care and comfort standards, and safety considerations...". The TOR go on to state that, "current low service standards, as well as high load factors, annually or seasonally, are to be criteria by which the LSRS will identify needs for increasing service frequency, including just seasonal frequency increases, and f3r approving new route franchises". The TOR also identify the limits of LSRS responsibility regarding shipping service evaluation stating that, "It is not expected that the LSRS will recommend precise adjustments to service schedules, but merely will indicate where, and the approximate extent to which, service schedule flexibility should be incorporated in existing and new route franchises, and to indicate, approximately, the new route franchises that should be approved during the cargo rate dere-ulation period, i.e., 1993-1996", and further that, "It will subsequently be the responsibility of MARINA to invite applications for new or expanded services, and then to evaluate applications received...". To carry )ut the shipping service evaluation portion of LSRS the workscope, the LSRS divided the areas to be surveyed into six groups: - Northern Islands. The areas surveyed include the islands of Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Tablas, Sibuyan, Masbate, and Catanduanes, and survey ports include the principal ports of these islands, as well as the Luzon ports of Manila, Batangas, Lucena (Dalahican), Tabaco, and Legaspi. - Eastern Visayas. This survey area is Region VII-I of the Philippines, and ports where LSRS surveys were conducted included Tacloban and Catbalogan. I M Central & Western Visayas. This area corresponds to Regions VI and VII. LSRS survey ports included Cebu, Iloilo, San Jose De Buenavista, Dumaguit, New Washington, Culasi, Bacolod, Dumaguete, San Carlos, Tagbilaran, and the ports of Guimaras Island. M Northern Mindanao. This area approximately corresponds to Region X and the northern provinces of Region XII, and includes the survey ports of Cagayan de Oro, Surigao, Nasipit, Iligan, and Ozamis. M Southern Mindanao. This area approximately corresponds to Region XI, the southern provinces of Region XII, and the mainland provinces of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), and includes the survey ports of Davao, General Santos, and Cotabato/Polloc. M Zamboang& & Sulu Archipelago. This area includes the ARMM offshore provinces of Sulu and Tawi Tawi, Basilan Island, and most of the Zamboanga Peninsula, and ports where LSRS surveys were conducted include Zamboanga, Pagadian and Jolo. The LSRS prepared a draft shipping service evaluation report on each of the six areas identi-fied above. In this Final Report, however, the Northern Mindanao and Southern Mindanao reports have been combined in Volume VII. The other service evaluation reports are Volumes IV through VI, and Volume VIII. The shipping services of Palawan Province are discussed in the Final Report's Volume IX, wherein the LSRS focus is mainly on the needs for additional services, rather than on the improvement of existing services. The port of Manila North Harbor (MNH) is discussed to some extent in most volumes of the Final Report, because of the importance of shipping connections to the MNH for all other areas of the Philippines. The principal discussion of the MNH is included in Volume XII, however, which focuses on the potential role of Batangas Port as a terminus for interisiand liner shipping services. Northern Luzon and the Bicol Peninsula have very limited interisland liner shipping services, in 1994. The LSRS did not conduct any developmental route evaluations for these two large areas of Luzon, but both areas are discussed in Volume III of this Final Report, which provides profiles of the sea trade of various areas and islands of th: Philippines. Each of the fiv., service evaluation reports examines the adequacy of both cargo and passenger liner shipping and ferry services, identifying: routes that'are franchised and the extent to 2 which they are being operated; operators and vessels, with vessel rated or estimated capacities; route capacities for passenger traffic and capacity utilization, including seasonality; shipping service standards and problems; underlying, contributory causes for any identified low service standards and problems; and desirable actions to be taken to better ensure that shipping service standards are satisfactory in the futura. After this brief introduction, each of the shipping service evaluation reports presents its findings and recommendations as the remainder of Chapter 1, and is comprised of five other chapters and two or three annexes. Chapters 2 through 6 of each report present, respectively, available information on services franchised and operated, an evaluation of cargo services, an evaluation of passenger services, the identification of factors affecting service adequacy, and a recommended approach to improving the adequacy of services. Annexes A and B, in each of the five reports, provide detailed cargo and passenger survey information, respectively. Only Volume VIII, discussing the shipping services of the Zamboanga Peninsula, Basilan Island, and Sulu Archipelago (ZAMBASULA) area, includes a third annex which examines the economy and trade of the area. Fieldwork for the Northern Islands Shipping Services Evaluation Report (Northern Islands Report), which is Volume IV of this Final Report, was carried out in both provinces of Mindoro, on the islands of Romblon, Tablas and Marinduque, and at the Luzon ports of Batangas, Lucena, Legaspi and Tabaco, in May 1993, and on the islands of Catanduanes and Masbate, in June and July 1993, respectively. Most of the operators serving the northern islands have not been submitting complete annual reports to MARINA on their opeiations, so the LSRS fieldwork was necessary even to