PPA to inaugurate new, environment-friendly port terminals in Luzon

The Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) will be inaugurating three major terminals across the country in March this year, including the one in Calapan City in Oriental Mindoro which will be the Philippines’ biggest Passenger Terminal Building (PTB).

Aside from the PTB in Calapan City, PPA General Manager Jay Santiago said they will also inaugurate next month the new Port Operations Building (POB) in Masbate and the new PTB in Coron, Palawan.

The Port Operations Building in Masbate will be inaugurated on March 8 while the Port Operations Building in Palawan will be on March 15.

On the other hand, the Passenger Terminal Building in Calapan City will be inaugurated on March 21.

“The public can expect that these three activities will happen within the first three weeks of March (2023) because we intend to make all of them operational just before the Holy Week,” said Santiago in a press briefing on Monday, Feb. 20.

The construction of the three major terminals in Luzon is expected to be a big relief to hundreds of thousands of ship and ferry passengers who go on exodus during long weekends, including Holy Week, All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, and Christmas season, to be with their family or take advantage of the long break for a family or vacation with friends.

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Santiago said that in the construction of port terminals, they made sure that it goes with the current trend of being environment-friendly.

The lighting for instance, he said, would use LED lights which means reduction of power consumption from regular electricity sources.

He said the design also includes efficiency in the air conditioning system and soon, he said they would push for the use of solar power in all port terminals.

“Fifty percent of the terminals now are constructed with resilient and weather proof glass, so that the lighting would not be expensive in electric consumption. And we also call this waste water in our terminal operations, we’re improving our water treatment,” said Santiago.

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Santiago also disclosed that in the construction of new terminals with new and environment-friendly design, all of them were developed by PPA architects and engineers.

“We do not get foreign consultants to design our terminals, we made sure that they are all homegrown talent,” said Santiago.