Only half of Manila-based truckers join holiday

MANILA, Philippines - Only about 50 percent of truckers operating out of the Port of Manila (POM) and the Manila International Container Port (MICP) joined the first day of a “stakeholders’ holiday” Monday to compel the national government to lift Manila’s daytime truck ban.

Bureau of Customs (BOC) spokesperson Charo Logarta-Lagamon said their district collectors assigned at the POM and MICP noticed that there was a long line of trucks on Monday morning but during the afternoon the volume of waiting trucks thinned out.

“From what our MICP district collector Elmir dela Cruz says, it seems that not all the truck operators are joining the ‘indefinite holiday.’ He says that the importers, the clients, are the ones that are driving the demand that they operate because they need those goods delivered,” Lagamon said. 

The Aduana Business Club, the group whose members started the holiday, said even if other truckers continue to operate, their members will continue with their “indefinite” strike, which was on its second day yesterday.

“Our campaign is continuous. We continue to hand out manifests. There are still drivers who do not want to deliver the goods to show their dissatisfaction with the daytime truck ban implemented by the city government of Manila,” the club’s president, Mary Zapata, said.

Zapata admitted that despite their appeal to the national government to lift the ban – which she claimed has been hurting their businesses and the country’s economy – there has been no response from the Aquino administration.

She said they are looking for other avenues to address the situation, such as meeting with some private sectors such as some representatives from the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry.