CLAIMS that the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) in the past did not have clear direction for the maritime industry is not completely true, otherwise, the state in which we find the industry now would have been worse. I am aware, having joined MARINA in 1979 until I resigned in 2003 to join the International Maritime Organization (IMO), of efforts by the agency to put up the Maritime Industry Development Program (MIDP), which was mandated under Presidential Decree No. 474. In form I agree MARINA failed to produce the MIDP document as stipulated by PD 474; in substance, past administrations of the agency formulated their respective policy directions and delivered concrete accomplishments based on these.
Established at a time of political uncertainties exacerbated by insufficient resources such as manpower and funding with hardly any support from the highest level of governance which exercised both executive and legislative powers, MARINA had no other recourse but to give priority attention to pressing issues at that time.
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