PH cargo owners urged anew to use lulls on weekends, Mondays for box retrievals

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ID-100180103Utilizing weekends and Monday mornings for cargo withdrawals is the solution seen by the Senate and concerned government agencies to further decongest Manila ports in the run-up to the peak shipping season beginning September.

“We really need to get importers to assist in moving cargo on these days because believe me, when we work Sundays and Mondays, we go back to normal,” Christian Gonzalez, Asia Region head of port operator International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI), said at a hearing on port congestion called by Senators Paolo Benigno Aquino IV and Francis Joseph Escudero on August 13.

Alberto Suansing, director of the Confederation of Truckers Association of the Philippines (CTAP), said cargo owners balk at weekend retrievals due to additional expenses such as overtime pay and premiums that these involve.

The government has been urging cargo owners to pull out their shipments on weekends to help decongest ports and roads. The Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) earlier said that prior to the Manila truck ban, about 5,000 boxes arrived daily at Manila ports against a retrieval capacity of 6,000 containers.

But when the truck ban was implemented in late February, the daily pullouts slowed to 3,500 containers, leading to a backlog of 135,000 boxes within Manila ports in the first three months of the ban’s adoption.

Pick-ups improved to 4,200 containers daily when the express trade lane for trucks was introduced in June.

Manila Vice Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso, at the same hearing, requested for nighttime deliveries instead and for the ports and Bureau of Customs to operate 24/7.

ICTSI’s Gonzalez said 55% of international traffic already moves at night, but that there are other players in the port that need to be persuaded to also operate 24 hours.

PPA general manager Juan Sta. Ana said ports have been operating 24/7 since the start.

Customs Commissioner John Sevilla said that while BOC is not operating 24/7, it has been conducting weekend operations since June 28 but with tepid response from the private sector.

Suansing said truckers are willing to operate on weekends, even on national holidays. The same sentiment was communicated by the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Earlier, the Confederation of Garment Exporters of the Philippines also expressed interest in utilizing weekends for two months.

The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) previously notified its members to pull out their cargoes on weekends. PCCI president Alfredo Yao, who attended the Senate hearing, had left by the time the Senate asked the private sector to commit to weekend withdrawals.

Escudero asked the Cabinet cluster committee on port decongestion to submit an initial plan on how the group intends to move forward, including suggestions for long-term solutions and a time and motion study on when it expects to “catch up and resolve this backlog.”

The Senate committee will meet after a month to see if the private sector made good on their commitment to pull out shipments on weekends.

After the hearing, Aquino told reporters, “Right now, it’s really a matter of cooperation between the truckers, the logistics (companies), the owners of the containers, private sector and different agencies (to resolve the congestion).”

The senator added, “If we’re going to fix this problem…let’s go for long-term solutions.”

Doris Magsaysay-Ho, chief executive officer of Magsaysay Group of Companies, also called for a long-term plan now, noting it’s not easy to decongest Manila and “move somewhere else” because the population is in Manila. She pointed out that ports in most parts of the world are within cities “because (they) service the population.”

This, Ho said, points to the urgent need for “a more strategic approach to help ensure that capacity coming in and out of the ports, both international and domestic, is able to go (freely) and not have a funnel.”

She also called for better port infrastructure, especially those catering to domestic shipping lines.

Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo said port congestion will be a “continuing problem” due to road overcapacity and the growing economy. – Roumina Pablo

Image courtesy of potowizard at FreeDigitalPhotos.net