Our interisland shipping/RoRo/ferry traffic.

News about the expansion of the Calapan, Mindoro port passenger terminal caught my attention recently. It is definitely welcome news.

The Port of Calapan, according to the news report emanating from the PPA (Philippine Ports Authority), would quadruple its capacity to serve sea travelers - from 800 passengers to 3,500. It would become the largest passenger terminal among island terminals.

In the same breath, the PPA also announced that the expansion of the Zamboanga City passenger port terminal, which is in advanced construction, would soon surpass Calapan's capacity. Earlier, the backup area and pier facilities at Zamboanga were also being improved as a result of increased budgetary allocation.

Our national transportation network. Most Filipinos now fly to go interisland if the distance is far enough. Improvement of travel is often dominated by the public demand for the improvement of airports.

Even though we are a nation of 7,000 plus islands, our national nautical highway - the sea routes by which our port system movement of goods and people travel historically - consists only of less than a dozen major islands that are close to each other by distance and geography of size and people population.

To improve that sea highway with infrastructure investments can help accelerate regional economic development. The logic of this statement recognizes that sea and air transport are connected with land transport systems.

Even if air travel becomes dominant for people movements, many land travelers still use land-sea connections. Moreover, merchandise travel - the heart of commerce in goods - will, for the most part, depend on land-sea transport systems.

If the country's nautical highway becomes an all-in-one part of the national transport traffic, each of the major islands that comprise our geography will help bring more progress to the smaller group of islands that are dependent on them.

Then regional economic development will be more evenly spread in the nation and much more interdependence of all the islands will cement national unity and progress.

Interisland transport efficiency needed. In 1974, major institutional reform was undertaken to put into effect improvements in interisland transportation.

Two critical institutions were created with corporate powers in order to overcome the limitations of the bureaus in the public works department that support transport investment and policies pertaining to inter-island traffic.

Thus, two...