SEVERAL vegetable sellers in Cagayan de Oro reported that they lost millions of pesos after airlines failed to carry tons of vegetables bound for Manila and left these to rot at the Laguindingan Airport.
The vegetable owners have sought the help of Councilor George Goking, who heads the committee on trade and commerce.
In their letter, the Westbound Terminal and Public Market stallholders said assorted vegetable products and goods were not accommodated for transport for three weeks now.
They said that these goods are perishable and are both temperature sensitiveadding that the interlude of the transportation of goods are causing so much delay on the distribution of their vegetable products.
Peter Sumabong, one of the stall holders who appeared during a committee Goking called last Friday, September 21, said, the vegetables are supposed to supply the Luzon area after typhoon Ompong damaged their agricultural lands.
Sumabong said the demand of vegetables in Luzon has tripled, but instead of earning more, their losses however tripled because of the incident.
Nona Saballer, a vegetable stall holder at the Westbound Market said Manila buyers have been expecting the products to arrive two weeks ago.
"Imbis mahuman nami sa among utang, mangutang nasad mi utro para ikapital napud kay mamasin mi makabawi sa gansi namo nga millions intawon (Instead of finally offsetting our loans, we would have to borrow capital again hoping we can have a break even on our losses amounting to millions)," she said.
But a representative from the Philippine Airlines Lemuel Ruiz said they were trying hard to accommodate all cargoes, however, pointing out that they cannot also allow their aircraft to fly with an overloaded capacity.
Ruiz cited that an aircraft's capacity should only be at 620 tons for the shipments, but last month they were able to carry a total of 892 tons.
"For the past month, more than 90 percent nga among naload is perishable," he added.
Goking said a second round of meeting is scheduled this week. He said he has invited Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol.
He said if worse comes to worst, he is willing to ask the Philippine Air Force to transport the vegetables to Manila.
"But it's not going to be easy because as far as I know, an hour of flight of the Air Force helicopter costs P100,000, so we have to see other options," he said.
Goking has created a technical working group to further study the case and identify the extent of damage.
"These vegetable owners are our taxpayers so we have to protect them," he added.