SENATE President Ralph Recto on Tuesday said the country’s deficit in ships is not only with the Philippine Navy, but also in civilian activities such as the Coast Guard patrol, calamity response, and tapping Manila’s main waterway as an alternative to its car-choked streets.
“If we can buy P18 billion worth of ships, we can afford Philippine-made Pasig River ferry boats, hospital ships, and coastal patrols,” said Recto.
For a fraction of the price tag of two Navy frigates, the senator said the country can buy locally-made ferry boats for the Pasig River, floating hospitals, environmental patrol boats, and other ships needed by a disaster-prone archipelago where half of the towns lie along the coast.
“If we were able to find the means to buy our Navy more ships, then we should also be that resourceful in meeting the needs of other agencies for more floating assets,” Recto said.
In acquiring these ships, he said the government can “buy Filipino” by tapping the vibrant shipbuilding industry in President Duterte’s home province of Cebu, as well as Navotas and Subic, where the Chief Executive last month led the launch of a half-kilometer-long megaship that can carry 20,950 40-foot container vans.
The Senate leader also cited the two Navotas-made research ships commissioned by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources—the Lapu-Lapu and Francisco Dagohoy—which have been on research and enforcement patrol since their launch two years ago.
“Each costs just P250 million. This is equivalent to our downpayment in the Dalian trains of the MRT that cannot be used,” Recto said.
Recto said the Philippines has been recognized as the fourth largest shipbuilder in the world. “If other nations find our ships exceptional, then we should, too,” he said.
Local shipbuilders can also build the “country’s humanitarian fleet,” the senator added.
“We need a hospital ship. Even a small one. Or two all-purpose mercy ships, which can be used as floating headquarters when all land structures have been destroyed. We are an archipelago. And when there’s a typhoon and the roads are destroyed, the only way to reach the victims is by sea,” he said.
“And if it is just a ship for coastal or river patrol, then our local shipyards [can] make them. The weaponry can come from abroad, but the boat can be built here. How can we keep our rivers and seas clean when our ecological police cannot set out to sea for lack of boats?” he said.
Recto said government should also reach out to local shipbuilders “in optimizing the unused resource that is the Pasig River in solving Manila’s traffic.”
One of the solutions, Recto said, “is that body of water in between the President’s office in Malacañang and the President’s bedroom in Bahay Pangarap. He can see and smell the solution.”
Recto also said the cost of reviving Pasig River as a people mover is less compared to the expensive land-based solutions like trains and elevated expressways.
“This nautical highway is wider than the widest road. It is toll-free, ready to use, and doesn’t have right-of-way issues. Unlike roads, its rehabilitation won’t cause traffic jams. The missing link are the boats, and that can be supplied by domestic shipbuilders,” Recto said.
Before the 10-boat Pasig River ferry service stopped operating in 2011, it served 17 stations along a 15-kilometer route from Plaza Mexico in Intramuros, Manila to Nagpayong in Pasig City.