It’s part of the highway! Govt Must Take Over Ferry Services on AH26

The ferry services linking Surigao del Norte-Southern Leyte and Northern Samar-Sorsogon should be taken over by government as this is part of the Asian Highway 26 network or the Pan-Philippihe Highway.

The perennial logjam of vehicles, especially cargo trucks loaded with agricultural products bound for Metro Manila and Luzon, had caused prices of food commodities to go up causing huge losses to farmers and a heavy burden on consumers.

Let me emphasize that the two ferry connections are critical parts of the AH26 network, thus crossing of vehicles and people must be facilitated by government.

There two options that the Dept. of Transportation under Sec. Arthur Tugade could explore:

1. Take over the ferry services from the inept ferry operators and field government owned ferry boats to serve the connections, although this would entail a huge expense on the part of government, not to mention the management issues; or

2. Government to take over the ferry services but bid out the servicecontract to efficient and modern ferry services operators who could provide regular and free crossing of vehicles and people.

I believe that the ferry services in these connections should be provided for free by government because it is part of the national highway network.

These ferry connections are virtual bridges in other national highways which the public could use for free.

May karga o wala, dapat regular ang schedule ng pagtawid ng mga ferry para hindi maantala ang mga kargamento and that would only happen if the ferry services are operated by government.

I am making this recommendation public because our government agencies are preparing for the submission of their budget proposals for 2023.

The proposal for regular and scheduled free ferry services operated by government should be considered seriously as it would dramatically bring down the prices of goods from Mindanao bound for Luzon and vice versa.

If this recommendation is not considered, I promise I will work on this should I be blessed with the opportunity of serving the country as member of the Philippine Senate this year.

#GovernanceIsCommonSense!

#KungGustoMaramingParaan!

(Images of stranded cargo trucks in one of the ferry connections along the AH26 were taken from a video posted by M. Elvin P. Secreto in his FB page. Map of AH 26 was downloaded from public website.)