Question RORO port fee, pay or no pay?

In my experience you will be charged a port fee whenever the property of two ports you are traveling between is not owned by the same person. When the property of the two ports is owned by the same person the government does not have the ability to come in and snatch money, among other things. Reason? "Because Philippines". (I need to make some shirts up that have this on it as it explains almost all questions that could be asked about why things are they way they are here. )

An example of this on Negros would be the Tampi and Bato ports.....both of which are owned by the Matiao family (if I remember correctly). You will not be charged a port fee, be subject to inspections by the Coast Guard nor will you have to show your vehicle registration at these types of ports.

Worth noting: Matiao has tried to purchase a lot in Bohol so that he can run ferries back and forth, but rumor has it that the powers that be (both government and other shipping companies) have blocked him from buying the land (or registering it as a port....or something like that).

I believe the port fees are determined by the size and/or capacity of the port. Smaller ports like Dumaguete, Masbate, Dipolog, Dapitan, Matnog (which is small but has a lot of traffic), etc are usually around P20. Ports like CDO, Cebu, Manila, Davao, Ormoc, etc are going to be higher than that (P50+). I also believe you are required to pay this fee to the Coast Guard/Port Authority and not the port owners/shipping companies. You should demand a receipt from the person you pay this fee two. Everywhere I have been has given a little blue or red ticket (the size of a raffle ticket) that indicates it was for the port fee. Obviously, this receipt should reflect the amount you actually paid. (This was not the case in Masbate during my one, and only, stop there. Their ticket/receipt said P10....yet they charged me P40. They said the price went up and they didn't have the new tickets in stock yet. I didn't believe that but I accepted it because I had spent some time driving around that horrible and very corrupt island for a couple hours because my next ferry was not for another 5 hours......and in that short time I had determined that Masbate is not a place I would want to spend even one night.....also worth mentioning that many of the Masbate gas stations only had 85 octane fuel....which might have been leaded for all I knew. Screw that dirty, polluted, corrupt, racist and backwards island! )

Another note: Many ports also have their own separate "fees" on top of the government fee. Such as: The retarded "loading fee" for the roro ferry that goes from Dumaguete to Cebu over night (Montenegro Lines if I remember correctly)......they have this fee because you can't actually "roll on" to the d*mn ferry.....even though "roro" actually stands for "roll on, roll off"......because there is a 1m gap between the port and the ship's ramp . The Dumaguete port also used to have an "entrance fee" for vehicles.....that they "selectively" collected on . No idea if this is still there or not.

Spoiler: Personal Experience with the Dumaguete Port

Several years ago I got into a heated debate with a little 10 year-old brat (that looked like a homeless kid - wearing no shirt or shoes) that was apparently working as a "fixer" at the Dumaguete Port that was trying to demand that I pay him the "loading fee"....which I refused to do because he didn't have an ID showing he worked at the port and he said I wouldn't get a receipt. (This was right in front of a guard....and the guard actually took the little sh*thead fixer's side on it and shut the gate, blocking me from taking my bike to the roro. The guard even went as far as to start holding his shotgun like he was prepared to use it on me when I asked if he was really going to take a fixer's side on it. Maybe the kid was his son or something.....who knows. They also wouldn't let me, my friend and a couple other local bystanders (who I was willing to pay significantly more than what the little sh*t's "loading fee" would have cost me) hand lift my bike onto the ferry instead of using the port's POS fork lift. This was the point I started to get very upset.

Even after informing them of the anti-fixer law/sign, telling them I would report the guard's and kid's "fixing activities" to the Coast guard.....and then actually reporting it to the Coast Guard and bringing over a uniformed CG seaman.....they still wouldn't budge on their position that I should pay for the loading fee without receiving a receipt....and they still insisted that I should pay it to the child. (The Coast Guard had absolutely no interest in their "activities" and did nothing but listen to what they had to say, told me he was sorry and then walked away to go back to his nap that I had woken him from. ) I figured at that point I had to play the game by their rules as the ferry was 20 minutes from leaving and I knew my chances of getting a refund for the ticket from Montenegro Shipping would be significantly less than trying to get out of paying the fixer.

I did let them know how I felt about that though.....by shouting to the kid and the guard what I thought of them as humans and their activities....which also included plenty of hand gestures that informed them of what I thought they should be sucking on. The little kid flipped me off and yelled to me, "If I see you again I kill you!". I again gestured to what he could suck on and flipped him the bird. (He never did see me again because I refuse to go through that screwed up and corrupt port again.) Of course, my little outburst was made by me from the top deck of the ferry as it was pushing off from the port heading for Cebu. Never seen to Filipinos so p*ssed off before. Good thing for me the captain of the ferry didn't forget anything and have to go back to port.....I would have had to have found a good hiding spot on the ferry or went for a swim.