MANILA – The Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) is gearing up for the upcoming year as the agency finalizes its priority plans and programs for Fiscal Year 2024 during its consecutive conferences held from 13 to 17 November 2023.

From 13 November to 15 November 2023, MARINA’s Planning and Policy Service (PPS) spearheaded the Annual Regulatory Planning Conference (ARPC), where MARINA offices nationwide actively participated. This was succeeded by the Annual Planning and Budgeting Conference (APBC) organized by the Budget Division from 16 November to 17 November 2023.

Three-day Annual Planning and Regulatory Conference

The ARPC aimed to solidify policy priorities in alignment with the Maritime Industry Development Plan (MIDP) and the MARINA Voyage Plan (MVP) 2028. It also provided an opportunity for the Service Units involved in regulation-making to refine their target policies for 2024, which will be submitted to the Anti Red Tape Authority (ARTA) as part of the Planning Stage of the policy formulation.

In her opening remarks, Deputy Administrator for Planning (DAP) Sonia B. Malaluan emphasized the significance of quality over quantity in policy formulation and declared a stronger partnership with ARTA in the Agency’s pursuit of institutionalizing Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) to implement better regulations for the maritime industry.

PPS Director Luisito Delos Santos stressed that MARINA offices will continually support the transition towards evidence-based regulation-making through RIA. This sentiment was echoed by the MARINA OIC-Administrator Engr. Nannette Z. Villamor-Dinopol, who encouraged attending officials to persist in integrating RIA for the industry’s improvement and the transformation of the Philippines into a major maritime nation.

With the conclusion of 2023 approaching, MARINA, through the efforts of its Service Units, is already preparing for regulatory commitments in the next calendar year. The successful completion of the ARPC marks the commencement of the Planning Stage of the policy-formulation process in line with Administrative Order No. 16-22.

Two-day Annual Planning and Budgeting Conference

Given the directive of the MARINA management to ensure all projects are included in next year’s Annual Plan and Budget (APB) and are aligned with core functions, the MARINA Voyage Plan, and the Learning Development Plan, among others, each service unit presented their proposed programs with respective costs. This was to determine the ranking of prioritized programs for the next fiscal year, 2024. The proposals were evaluated by the Deputy Administrator for Planning.

It is noteworthy that in the last Fiscal Year 2023, MARINA was appropriated a budget of Php 910.888 million and has proposed a total of Php 1.171 Billion under the General Appropriations Bill for the 2024 budget.

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