Veggie truckers to seek lift ban
BENGUET vegetable truckers are asking permission from Baguio City Mayor Mauricio Domogan to temporarily to lift the truck ban during the Yultide.
"We are appealing to the mayor of Baguio to temporarily lift the truck ban hanggang December 30 lang. Maraming gulay na iyong purchase kung hindi sila makakahabol sa pagtravel nila, maraming farmers ang hindi makakapagbenta ng gulay, at makakacelebrate this holiday," said Benguet Farmers Marketing Cooperative general manager Augusta Balanoy.
Supply of vegetables this Christmas season has reached 2 to 3 million kilograms a day wherein the volume of vegetables being purchased doubles in response to the increase of demand from the different key markets in the country.
"With the said lifting, the trading and hauling of the 2.5 million kilograms a day will be faster and easier. Likewise, it will be a meaningful gift to the 130,000 farmers of Benguet, not to in-
clude farmers from Mountain Province and Tinoc, Ifugao," stated in the letter by the La Trindad Vegetable Truckers.
Earlier in May, Benguet truckers are using gate passes to be exempted from the truck ban ordinance imposed in the City of Baguio.
La Trinidad Mayor Romeo Salda said he will again endorse 10 trucks seeking for a request of exemption from the ban to deliver vegetable from the Valley to Iloilo city.
"We have to bring the vegetables at Batangas Port and Caticlan Port as soon as possible so the vegetable will not be destroyed," added the letter dated December 16.
Salda said there are 50 gate passes which serve as exemption from truck ban ordinance for the truckers traversing Baguio roads going to marketplaces of Divisoria and Balintawak in Manila.
In the new truck ban ordinance, sixwheeler trucks that weighs more than 4,500 kilograms, heavy equipment, trailer and dump trucks are prohibited from plying the city’s streets from six a.m. to nine a.m. and four p.m. to nine p.m. daily and trucks that will be affected ban should pass through available alternate routes.