By Genevi Factao

Citing reports from exporters saying the reduced wharfage fee has minimal effects on their earnings, the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) yesterday said it will revert back to the original rates.

"With exporters claiming that the reduced fee given by PPA for the past 9 months is negligible, we will not entertain any petition to introduce it again at this time," PPA general manager Oscar Sevilla said.

The original wharfage fee was pegged at P259.70 and P391.05 per 20 -footer and 40 -footer container, respectively.

Last year, PPA implemented a 90 percent cut or P20 for 20 footer and P40 for 40- footer container.

Sevilla said they have been planning of reverting to the original rate since the start of the year, adding that the reduced rates have greatly affected PPA’s income.

PPA earlier gave the decision whether to continue or not with the reduced rate to the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC), which later on issued an order not to give in to requests.

Due to the reduce fee which started in April until end December, the major projects were greatly affected brought by the inability to finance port expenditures.

According to PPA, exporters saved P27 million in the first 6 months of the implementation of the reduced fee. The PPA on the other hand lost about P100 million in revenues since April last year.

Wharfage fee is one of the major sources of revenues for PPA, aside from port dues.

"Unless there is a direct order from the President, we will not implement the program again to collect the needed money to finance our projects that keeps on piling up every month but remained idle or slowed down due to reduced capacity of PPA to finance it brought about by the cut in wharfage fee," Sevilla said.

In December last year, business groups have been clamoring for an extension of the lower wharfage fee until this year.

The Federation of Philippine Industries and the Philippine Exporters Confederation sought for an extension to cushion the effects of the strong peso.

The PPA earlier said that it may extend the implementation of the reduced fee on a quarter-to-quarter basis. But when the decision on the petition was transferred to the DOTC, the government said, "it’s final and no more extension of reduced wharfage will be given to exporters."

The DOTC stood firm to its earlier decision not to bring back the cut in wharfage fee.