Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada reminded businesses on Wednesday that the lifting of the truck ban is “indefinite,” and was only meant to help ease port congestion in time for the increased volume of trade during the Christmas season.
The former president maintained that the city will implement anew the truck-ban ordinance once trade volume, which seasonally spikes during the holidays, normalizes.
“If I consider the truck ban is needed, I’ll impose it. It’s indefinite. But because it’s the Christmas season, we have to lift the truck ban so as not to disturb the flow of goods coming from abroad,” Estrada said in an interview with reporters at the sidelines of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s 40th Philippine Business Conference and Expo, held at the Manila Hotel.
Estrada lifted the Manila daytime truck ban in September, amid calls from various business organizations, whose mounting costs—resulting from slower delivery cycles of imports and exports—are taking a toll on their competitiveness and productivity.
The truck ban aggravated the congestion of Manila’s ports, resulting in a logjam of incoming and outgoing cargo in the country’s main trade gateway, effectively ballooning the costs of firms.
Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. President Sergio R. Ortiz-Luis Jr. was earlier quoted as saying that an electronic firm had to shut down, as it was losing as much as $1 million a day.
Electronic firms, in general, were losing anywhere between $20,000 and $100,000 a day.
The congestion had far-reaching effects, as the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) cited the pileup in the ports as among the factors that had an inflationary effect on the prices of goods and commodities.
Estrada imposed the daytime truck ban in February in view of the worsening traffic situation in Manila and banned eight-wheeler trucks with gross weight of 4,500 kilos from plying the city’s streets from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Estrada, when asked if the truck ban may be imposed anew in the first quarter, said: “It depends, we will study it further.”