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Friday, July 08, 2005
Veggie dealers exempted from coding, truck ban
By Jane Cadalig
LOCAL vegetable truckers are confident that they would not anymore encounter extortionists along the highway going to Manila after their request for government protection was granted.
This, as the regional Department of Agriculture (DA) office and La Trinidad Mayor Nestor Fongwan Thursday distributed food lane stickers that will exempt vegetable dealers from the truck ban and color-coding, which is allegedly one of the sources of extortion.
The food lane project was established last year to facilitate the delivery of highland agricultural crops to the Metro Manila areas by exempting vegetable dealers from the truck ban and color-coding.
Seventeen members of the Benguet Truckers and Traders Association (BTTA) were initially given food lane stickers and accreditation.
They were handed by Patricio Ananayo, chief of the DA-Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance and Fongwan to BTTA vice president Andres Urjino. The food lane accreditation shall be shown by the holder upon inspection by traffic enforcers.
The document bears the signatures of Agriculture Assistant Secretary Salvador Salacop and Angelito Vergel de Dios, director of the Traffic Operations Center of the Metro Manila Development Authority.
BTTA is a 250-strong organization engaged in hauling vegetables from the La Trinidad Trading Post and delivering these to the National Capital Region (CR) and other areas in the country.
They earlier complained about the existence of several checkpoints, which has led to the reported rampant extortion practice of personnel who man them, thus the request for a route where they could deliver their goods directly to various markets in NCR.
It was earlier planned that the DA will provide the stickers and accreditation but Fongwan, during the kick off of the food lane project last October, requested that MMDA should also get involved to make sure that its personnel would honor the same, considering that the express lane is within its jurisdiction.
(July 8, 2005 issue)
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