Lamitan port can now accommodate transnational ships
BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 19:15 PM Tue May 12, 2020
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By:
John M. Unson
The seaport terminal building in Lamitan City. (Contributed)
COTABATO CITY --- The Department of Transportation has awarded the Lamitan City Port in Basilan an international security compliance certificate allowing accommodation of transnational vessels.
Lamitan City is the capital of the island Basilan province in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Garry Abas, BARMM’s regional ports manager, said Tuesday the transportation department’s Office for Transportation Security granted on April 24 the port of Lamitan City an International Code for the Security of Ships and Port Facilities Certificate.
“The Lamitan City port has complied with all the technical and documentary requisites set by the national government as basis for the grant of that certificate. It is something we cannot easily get from the Department of Transportation,” Abas said.
Abas said credit for the feat should go to the office of Erwin Cervantes, port manager for Lamitan City, the capital of Basilan.
Only the seaport in Lamitan City, from among the ports in BARMM’s five provinces --- Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi --- has been awarded with such certificate, the first ever in the Bangsamoro region.
Abas said the certificate allows docking of international vessels in Lamitan City.
“This can help improve the investment climate in Basilan,” he said.
Basilan is now known as the new investment frontier in the Bangsamoro region owing to the improving security situation in the province.
Basilan has become markedly peaceful after the surrender in batches from between 2017 to late 2019 of almost 300 local Abu Sayyaf bandits now thriving peacefully in the province as farmers and fishermen.