No truck holiday this week

MANILA, Philippines - Truckers will continue to try out and assess the compromise daytime truck ban on empty trucks being implemented in the streets of Manila.

Albert Suansing, director of the Confederation of Truckers Association of the Philippines (CTAP), said there will be no truck holiday this week, as truck owners and operators are trying to live with the daytime empty truck ban.

“There will be no protests or holidays. We will continue to assess (the truck ban),” Suansing told The STAR.

Suansing said he had checked with other trucking groups, including Integrated North Harbor Truckers Association of Teddy Gervacio and Alliance of Truck Owners and Operators of Ricky Papa, who assured him they have no plans to undertake any protest action this week.

Suansing, however, stressed truck operators would continue to oppose the daytime truck ban and they continue to look into possible solutions that will convince Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada to scrap or amend the scheme that would somehow allow empty trucks to use Manila’s streets.

“We can’t (live with the truck ban),” Suansing said. He explained the small and new truck operators are bearing the brunt of the daytime truck ban.

“The big ones can sit it out. But the small ones, those who have just bought trucks and are still paying for them, they will be swallowed up by the big ones who can survive with only one trip a day,” he said.

Suansing said his trucking company was among the ones that can operate through the truck ban but he still had his fellow trucking group members to think of.

“We’re looking at solutions, both short-term and long-term, that will be acceptable to everybody,” he said.

Suansing said the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) should take out-of-the-box solutions such as tapping information technology to set up a smart queuing system like that used in the banking industry, to deal with the problem of accommodating trucks inside the Port Area, especially empty trucks.

He said the new queuing ICT technology would make it more efficient for trucks to enter and exit the ports.

“A queuing system could regulate the entry of trucks into Manila and the Port Area, even empty ones, as long as they are in the queue,” he said.

The PPA and the different truck associations, he said, should come together to look into adopting such a solution. The Manila city government would also need to come on board in implementing such solution, he said.

Ultimately, the PPA would also have to put a cap on truck deliveries at the Manila International Container Terminal, the South Harbor and the Manila North Harbor, and then divert the ships either to Batangas and Subic.

“That’s the long-term solution: no more expansion of the Port Area by PPA, and setting a cap on the volume of shipments in Manila,” Suansing said.

“The excess volume should be passed on to Batangas or Subic,” he added.

Suansing said the Thailand Port Authority in Bangkok is using this method.

Suansing also warned the truck ban would result in serious economic repercussions.

“Trucking rates have already gone up,” he said.

Suansing said trucking companies have been slapping a “congestion charge” on cargo owners.

Working in favor so far of manufacturers was the big number of trucks and truck companies.

“What tempers the rates is competition,” Suansing said.