Department of Transportation (DOTr) Secretary Giovanni Z. Lopez asked the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) to explain why it has not apparently resolved the annual problem of commercial vessel shortage especially during long holidays.

The vessel shortage would usually resort to more stranded passengers and long queues of vehicles and Lopez was wondering why this has not been resolved when this is a common problem every year.

On Wednesday, Dec. 24 for instance, the Philippine Coast Guard was forced to deploy two of its vessels to help ferry stranded passengers in a port in Lucena City.

At the Batangas Port, long queues of passengers and vessels were monitored since Friday last week while a number of passengers were stranded for a few hours—all were traced to the shortage of commercial vessels.

This prompted Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) General Manager Jay Daniel Santiago to call on Marina anew to assist in allowing more ships to operate to address passenger congestion in ports—a call which he does every year.

In a recent interview, Santiago said he will also ask help from Lopez to address the problem.

And for Lopez, something must be done and it starts with the explanation from Marina, “We have holiday rush every year. This is not something new. They should have prepared, planned and anticipated all the problems that come with the influx of more passengers.”

“I have been giving firm instructions to always prioritize the comfort and convenience of our passengers in all modes of transportation and I will ask Marinato to explain why it appeared to have failed to do it,” he added.

For Lopez, it is unfair for passengers to experience the same problem every year.

“This really needs to be investigated,” Lopez said.

Port passengers

Santiago earlier disclosed that they are expecting at least 4.6 million port passengers from Dec. 15 to Jan. 5, which he said, is around 250,000 to 350,000 more compared to the same period last year.

As of noon on Wednesday, Dec. 24, the passenger traffic since Dec. 15 in all ports is almost 2.7 million.

Santiago said PPA has already prepared for this and part of the measures is the implementation of a no-leave policy for critical port personnel, additional frontline staff in high-traffic areas, strengthened security screening, and continuous monitoring of terminal operations to maintain passenger safety and comfort.

So far, he said port operations remained peaceful and orderly, with no major incidents reported.

Airline passengers

For its part, around 2.55 million passengers are expected at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).

On the part of the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA), he said a total of 169,380 passengers were recorded at the NAIA on Dec, 23— 84,651 international passengers and 84,729 domestic passengers.