Councilor Joel Garganera says there should be no double standard in treating shipping lines and airlines with the latter already given the okay to implement full capacity. | Screengrab from Councilor Garganera’s press briefing
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Emergency Operations Center (EOC) will be appealing to the national government on behalf of the shipping lines to increase their capacity.
Councilor Joel Garganera, deputy chief implementor of the EOC, said that shipping lines had been complaining that while the rest of the economy had been allowed to return to maximum capacity, they remained at 70 percent capacity.
As Metro Cebu is now under Alert Level 1, Garganera said there would be no more reason for shipping lines to carry less than 100 percent capacity as long as they would follow the proper health protocols of wearing face masks.
“How come ang airlines full capacity nga enclosed pa gyod? So niingon ang shipping lines nga ngano sila wala. Sa barko they are reasonably distant and then to think nga 50 to 70 percent open-air man na ang barko,” said the the deputy chief implementor of the Cebu City EOC.
(How come the airlines are in full capacity already and these are enclosed spaces? So the shipping lines asked why are we not included in these. The ships are reasonably distant and then to think that these ships are 50 to 70 percent open-air.)
With this, the councilor has written to Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) for the possibility of allowing shipping lines docking at Cebu City ports to return to 100 percent passenger capacity.
The shipping lines will need to follow the minimum health protocols and hepafilters will need to be installed for air-conditioned ships.
As long as they follow these requirements they should already be allowed 100 percent passenger capacity.
“Let’s not be double standard nga ang eroplano pwede pero ang barko dili. And they have also been suffering,” said the councilor.
(Let’s not be double standards that the airplanes are allowed while the boat are not. And they have also been suffering.)
Garganera has sent the letter to MARINA on March 31, 2020 in hopes that the agency would consider the plight of the shipping lines.
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