By Roderick T. dela Cruz

The Philippine Ports Authority incurred an additional debt of up to P3 billion over the past year alone, because of the strong yen, which pushed up the value of the government?s loan for the inactive second phase of the Batangas Port Development Project.

The project was built at a cost of P5.5 billion, funded mainly by a loan from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, but the PPA has not tapped an interested investor to manage the facility.

PPA general manager Oscar Sevilla said the fluctuation of foreign exchange bloated the loan for Batangas port, in peso terms, by P2 billion to P3 billion.

The Japanese yen has appreciated dramatically against other major currencies, amid the global financial crisis, which forced investors to flee from the US dollar in search for more stable currencies.

The yen appreciated by nearly 40 percent to about 0.52 per peso in February this year from only 0.38 a peso a year ago.

Sevilla said that because the PPA had to pay its debt to JBIC in yen, this means that the actual cost of the loan, in peso terms, went up by P2 billion to P3 billion.

Worse, he said that while port operators such as the International Container Terminal Services Inc. and Asian Terminals Inc. are interested in the Batangas port?s concession, a Supreme Court ruling on the proper valuation of 128 hectares of lands expropriated to the project has rendered the whole project inactive.

Phase I of the project was completed in 1999 and is now managed by ATI while phase 2 was built in August 2005, with still no operator.

The Supreme Court earlier ruled that the PPA should pay landowners of the propert, which was expropriated to the terminal, some P5,500 per square meter. Sevilla said this was much higher than the zonal valuation of P250 to P280 per sq. m. of the previously swampy land.

Sevilla said the bidders for the right to operate the modern port might not be known until the issue of payment is settled.

With the court?s ruling, the PPA was ordered to pay as much as P11.3 billion to 231 Batangas farmers who owned the lot where the port is located.

Sevilla said the adverse court?s decision on Batangas land ownership along with other rulings on other port projects has been blocking port development in the Philippines.

He said the fact that it takes the court years, if not decades to resolve an issue involving ports, is inimical to national and economic interest.