As part of the Philippines’ commitment towards building efficient and sustainable shipping in the ASEAN Region, the country, through the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) shared its efforts on green shipping and decarbonization during the 45th ASEAN Maritime Transport Working Group (MTWG) Meeting held from 17 to 19 October 2023 at Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam.
Headed by the MARINA Deputy Administrator for Planning, Ms. Sonia B. Malaluan, the Philippine delegation informed the meeting that following the adoption of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Revised Strategy on the Reduction of GHG Emission from Ships, the Philippines drafted its National Strategy and Action Plan despite the challenges in the implementation of the decarbonization strategy and targets.
Ms. Malaluan says that the Policy Menus under the ASEAN Green Ship Strategy is comprehensive and in our views cover and addresses the challenges of most of the ASEAN member states. She added that, we are interested on the available technical assistance, and sharing of data and results of analysis of data, and how the roadmap for decarbonization was developed.
The Philippines also shared its initiatives in the development and implementation of fuel economy policies and standard as well as policies towards cleaner fuels and vehicles and vessels. The Philippine Department of Energy is aggressively implementing the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act and the Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act.
It was informed that under the Philippine Energy Plan 2020-2040, hydrogen is being considered to be used in power generation and looking for the possibility for use in the maritime transport sector. Likewise, the Department is looking into the possibility of increasing the capacity of LNG facilities in the country to accommodate maritime transport, as we consider LNG as a transition maritime fuel.
The Philippines shared updates on the Port and Ballast Water Baselines using Ecological, Microbiological, and eDNA Approaches or the PORTEC Project, which include capacity building activities on port baselining and microbiology hands-on-training conducted with the maritime sector. Further, the Project has completed two-year water sampling on the Port of Manila. 80% of the collected samples were successfully identified, the remaining 20% have been submitted for DNA barcoding.
Meanwhile, the Philippines also reported updates on the capacity improvement of the ASEAN network ports, coordination efforts to support the sustainability of the Davao–General Santos–Bitung RO-RO route, efforts on Safety, Health, and Environmental management in Philippine ports, and IMO-related efforts and activities.
The Philippine delegation is composed of representatives from the Department of Transportation (DOTr), MARINA, Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and Philippine Ports Authority (PPA).