Business groups pleased, but want long-term plan

MANILA, Philippines - Business groups and other sectors hailed the lifting of the truck ban in Manila yesterday but stressed a long-term plan of action is needed to address congestion at the ports.

“Definitely it will be an advance Christmas gift for business,” Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) president Alfredo Yao said.

The ordinance which banned trucks from plying city streets from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. took effect in February.

As the truck ban has resulted in the piling up of containers at Manila’s ports as well as delays in business deliveries, the PCCI earlier proposed the ordinance be lifted to revert to pre-truck ban conditions.

While the group welcomed the lifting of the truck ban, Yao said the government still needs to come up with a long-term solution to decongest Manila’s ports.

“Expand Subic and Batangas port so as not to rely only on the limited capacity of Manila port and, of course, our infrastructure should be fast-tracked with political will to do it,” he said.

For his part, Makati Business Club (MBC) executive director Peter Perfecto said the lifting of the truck ban is good news as the ports issue is seen to have an impact on the Philippines’ competitiveness rankings.

“As we have said before, ports, power, prices, public transport and peace and order have to be addressed urgently as these may adversely affect our competitiveness rankings that have been on an upward trend for three years now,” he said.

Perfecto added the MBC is hopeful other recommendations and adoption of a longer-term plan of action will be made.

Management Association of the Philippines president Gregorio Navarro said the cooperation of other government agencies will be needed to solve port congestion.

“We hope that this gesture of cooperation by the City of Manila will likewise be followed by other local government units, line and regulatory agencies as well as law enforcement to solve this problem with finality,” he said.

Henry Schumacher, vice president for external affairs of the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, said that following the lifting of the truck ban, the country “will need a lifting of the franchising of trucks for hire by DOTC (Department of Transportation and Communications) agencies also (as) all trucks are needed to get full and empty containers out of the ports.”

Aduana Business Club president Mary Zapata said they were pleased with the lifting of the truck ban.

On their part, they would police their members and drivers so they would observe road courtesy to show Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada that even under normal circumstances, they could work together to improve traffic flow in the city.

Zapata believed Estrada might have realized that his “experimental” truck ban would not bring good results.

“From the start, ideally there was no truck ban,” she said.

Zapata also thanked the national government for listening to their plea to intervene in behalf of the truckers, importers and other affected sectors.

“Thanks to the national government even if they were late” in responding to their appeal, she said.

State agencies also hail decision

Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said the decision of the city government of Manila to lift the truck ban would hasten the decongestion of the ports.

“The decision of Manila will shorten our sacrifices,” Abaya said.

The lifting of the truck ban, however, is expected to cause heavy traffic along major thoroughfares, especially those leading to the Manila International Container Terminal (MICT) of the International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) and South Harbor of Asian Terminals Inc. (ATI).

“Again this will entail sacrifices for our citizenry as we receive our cargoes and push it out of the ports,” he added.

Abaya said the government is working hard to free up more space in the ports in time for the Christmas rush as yard utilization rate reached 110 percent a few months ago after Manila implemented the daytime truck ban last Feb. 24.

The government welcomed the decision of the Manila city government to finally lift the truck ban.

“It will further facilitate our solutions to the backlog of cargoes and the incoming surge of imports as Christmas approaches,” Abaya said.

Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) chairman Winston Ginez also welcomed the lifting of the truck ban in Manila.

Ginez said the city government’s decision to lift the truck ban would free up the previously impassable roads in the city since the ban was imposed in February.

“This will ensure the free flow of trucks to and from the Manila port,” he said.

He said this would improve the turnaround of trucks and in turn improve their mobility.

Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) general manager Juan Sta. Ana said the lifting of the truck ban in Manila would be a big help in the government’s effort to decongest the two ports.

“At least, with this move of the city government, we would be able to move further, this would be a big help in port decongestion,” said Sta. Ana, a member of the Cabinet Cluster on Port Congestion.

Sta. Ana explained the piers are only “reactive” to the developments that for the past eight months it bore the weight of the exceeding number of container vans that have remained stationary in the Port of Manila and the MICP.

There is also an imbalanced movement where the number of cargoes going out is far less than the number of cargoes coming in to the two ports.

Sta. Ana admitted he could not guarantee the port congestion would be solved by Monday even after the lifting of the truck ban yesterday.

“That should be the case, but there is a pile up at the pier. There are several containers still outside of the country that would be coming in,” he said.

They are also anticipating the increased volume of shipments coming in because of the upcoming holiday season, Sta. Ana added.

“(Port operations) are not yet normal” because only few are moving out their cargo, only few are opening their warehouses during weekends. “This is why the Cabinet Cluster has been encouraging importers and businessmen to be part of the solution by pulling out their overstaying cleared cargo containers from the ports to give way to the new incoming shipments,” he said.  – Lawrence Agcaoili, Reinir Padua, Evelyn Macairan