MILLIONS of Filipinos have not heard of the Port Users Confederation of the Philippines (PUCP), despite celebrating its 30th anniversary on Jan. 7. But for families fretting over rising prices, travelers wary of airport problems and, in recent months, tens of thousands of protesters raging over multibillion-peso government sleaze — these and other Pinoys have reason to thank PUCP that things aren’t worse.
Established with support from then-Bureau of Customs (BOC) commissioner Guilliermo Parayno, PUCP set up the agency on the computerized system for filing cargo documents for clearing imports and exports through sea and air terminals — speeding up the flow of goods, reducing business and consumer costs, and avoiding delays in everything from rice shipments to “balikbayan” boxes sent by overseas Filipino workers and other compatriots across the globe.
How bad things could get if trade and travel were not enhanced by PUCP dialogue with port authorities was seen in the cargo congestion crisis in 2014. Months-long delays in releasing and transporting imports constrained rice supplies and pushed prices higher. Manufacturers, too, suffered, with operations being suspended for lack of raw materials.
That led the PUCP to convene the Manila Port Summit with Cabinet members joining business leaders to urgently address the cargo crunch, triggered by the Manila city government’s restrictions and road charges on trucks picking up containers from the city’s terminals.
Give citizens a voice
PUCP’s efforts to enhance port operations in the face of massive corruption, particularly in the BOC, holds lessons for the nation’s never-ending struggle against corruption — now at its worst ever with the flood control fund scam allegedly running over P1 trillion.
Three effective measures emerge from three decades of government-business engagement through PUCP: private sector empowerment, process automation and respectful, open and productive dialogue.
Private-sector empowerment is most important. Not the collusion between corrupt businesses, bureaucrats and budget “proponents” seen in the flood control scandal. Rather, BOC chiefs listened to and acted on industry complaints against extortionist officials squeezing legitimate enterprises over cargo shipments.
This support for bona fide businesses began years before PUCP emerged as the leading voice for industries using port facilities. One of its founders, confederation chairman emerita Noemi Saludo, elected in 2004 as the first woman president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), recounts an action by then-customs commissioner and retired general Salvador Mison.
After hearing complaints about two customs inspectors demanding payoffs to clear cargo that was inadvertently switched between importers, Mison released the shipments, then transferred bribe-soliciting personnel to Mindanao.
That set the tone in the whole bureau, and the late Mison, who served under then-president Corazon Aquino, was widely acknowledged as among the cleanest chiefs in an agency notorious for graft, as seen in a United States government report decrying port sleaze last September.
Another respected commissioner was Guillermo Parayno, who pioneered BOC computerization in the 1990s Ramos administration. He urged industries with regular port operations to help automate the clearing of shipments and payment of tariffs and duties. Led by Noemi Saludo — this writer’s mother — PCCI and, upon its establishment, PUCP, set up with the BOC the cargo processing and duties payment system, which reduced human intervention and the sleaze that often thrives on it.
The cargo process automation won kudos from the International Monetary Fund, which then hired Parayno as consultant advising other countries on customs reform.
Consultation, not conflict
Besides private sector empowerment and process automation, PUCP also harnessed frank but respectful and productive dialogue with the government. The 2014 Manila Port Summit, cited by the current PUCP president, retired colonel Rodolfo de Ocampo, as a major highlight of his dozen years of service to the group, demonstrates this approach.
While there was much business frustration over port congestion caused by misgovernance, PUCP eschewed open criticism to work out solutions with both the national government and the Manila city authorities under the then-mayor Joseph Estrada.
This approach is needed even more today with the BOC being criticized for business-strangling graft by the US State Department’s review of business policies in the region.
But this dialogue requires a policy of empowering and listening to the people, as key customs chiefs like Mison and Parayno did. In fact, this policy of bringing the citizenry into top-level governance.
This was done in several agencies under the US Millennium Challenge Corp. reforms straddling the Arroyo and Aquino administrations. Major Cabinet departments, as well as the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Philippine National Police and the Civil Service Commission, regularly formed multisectoral advisory councils on policies and operations. Among other positive results, the AFP’s public satisfaction and trust ratings have increased since then.
Private sector empowerment, automation and productive dialogue. May our nation learn these lessons as we struggle with our grave governance issues.
