PPA Board approves Dumangas Port MOA

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

The Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) board yesterday finally approved the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the local government of Dumangas, Iloilo, regarding their revenue-sharing percentage for the operations of Dumangas Port.

A PPA source told Daily Guardian that the MOA is now being routed for signing by the concerned ports agency officials. Once it is signed, it will be forwarded to the local government of Dumangas headed by Mayor BJ Biron for approval and signature.

Biron earlier said that the revenue sharing between the PPA and Dumangas is outlined in the MOA which was submitted to PPA more than a year ago.

The Sangguniang Bayan of Dumangas had passed a resolution authorizing Biron to sign the agreement.

Biron clarified that based on Commission on Audit rules and regulations, a government agency or a local government unit can only release funds if there is legal basis.

Since the MOA has yet to be signed, the mayor highlighted that there is no basis yet for the 35/65 percent income-sharing from the Dumangas Port.

He also confirmed that the PPA’s 35 percent share, estimated to be PHP63 million more or less for years 2022 to 2024, will be released by the local government once the MOA is finalized. He assured that the funds remain intact and is open to scrutiny.

OWNERSHIP

The municipality of Dumangas took over the port in 2022 after the Iloilo Regional Trial Court Branch 68 in the town ordered the United Dumangas Port Development Corp. (UDPDC) of the Divinagracia family, the private firm overseeing the operations, to vacate and turn over the facility to the municipal government.

The dispute started in 2005 when the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) decided not to extend UDPDC’s permit to operate and instead conducted a bidding for a new cargo handling operator.

UDPDC disputed the bidding which led to a protracted legal battle that reached the Supreme Court.

The municipality of Dumangas intervened in the case on the basis of its Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the PPA, Project Management Office-Ports (PMO), the defunct Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), and Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) on June 30, 1999.

The MOA aimed to strengthen the capability of Local Government Units (LGUs) to a planned and desirable sustainable feeder ports operation as well as PPA Administrative Order No, 02-9814 dated August 31, 1998 which provided for the devolution of port management functions from the PPA to the LGUs concerned.

On August 12, 2015, the SC ruled in G.R. No. 192943 that “in view of the expiration of UDPDC’s permit to operate the port, and in the absence of any contract renewing the same, UDPDC cannot claim to have any right to the administration thereof.”

“…The series of hold-over authorities as well as the final holdover permit granting UDPDC a three (3)-month extension was clearly temporary in nature. As aptly found by the trial court, UDPDC’s continued operation of the port was merely by PPA’s tolerance, having no valid and existing permit, and that UDPDC’s status was merely on the basis of a holdover authority, temporary in nature, which may be recalled by PPA at any time. As such, the holdover permits should have served as adequate notice to UDPDC that, at any time, its authority to remain within the premises of the port of Dumangas may be terminated. That PPA arbitrarily revoked UDPDC’s permit upon the dictates of a powerful politician in the fourth congressional district of Iloilo is a mere speculation, unsupported in evidence,” the SC decision added.

The High Tribunal also reinstated the decision of RTC Branch 68 of Dumangas ordering “the delivery to the Municipality of Dumangas the operation of the cargo handling services of the Port of Dumangas, after the Municipality has reimbursed petitioner United Dumangas Port Development Corporation of the value of its development and improvements introduced on the Port and the value of its infrastructures and equipment used in the operation thereof.”

“For this purpose, the records of this case are hereby REMANDED to the Regional Trial Court of P.D. Monfort North, Dumangas, Iloilo, Branch 68, for the proper determination of the value of equipment and improvements introduced by petitioner on the Port of Dumangas,” it added.