Port congestion seen to ease after Pope’s visit

MANILA, Philippines - Congestion at Manila’s ports is seen to ease after the five-day visit of Pope Francis, a cabinet official said.

Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo told reporters that while the situation in the ports is expected to be affected by the visit of the Pope, improvements are seen for next week.

“According to port operators, after the holidays, they expect the situation to improve.  Because of the holiday, the processions (last week for the feast of Black Nazarene) and the five days the Pope will be here, it will worsen during that time. But after that, there will be sufficient time to catch up because of the lean season (for shipments),” he said.

Pope Francis, who arrived in Manila on Thursday, will leave for Rome on Monday.

Even as holidays were declared in Manila during the Pope’s visit, operations at Manila’s ports would continue, allowing cargoes to be unloaded and empty containers to be moved.

Outbound cargoes, however, would not be accepted during the holidays.

Movement of cargoes and trucks, meanwhile, would continue during the allowed hours in regular routes.

For routes which are temporarily closed for the Pope’s visit, such would be re-opened right after the activities.

Containers at Manila’s ports piled up following the imposition of a truck ban by the City Government of Manila in February last year.

Despite the lifting of the implementation of the truck ban by Manila City Mayor Joseph Estrada in September, congestion remains to be a problem.

Domingo said that while utilization of the ports is high on weekdays, there is not much activity on Sundays and Mondays.

As such, businesses are encouraged to move their containers on those days.

“There is so much capacity on Sundays and Monday mornings, so if they are in a hurry, they should take out their goods on Sundays and Mondays. It’s traffic free,” he said.