VOL. XXIX NO. 213 3 Sections 24 Pages P18 SUNDAY : SEPTEMBER 13, 2015 www.thestandard.com.ph editorial@thestandard.com.ph
TRADE CHIEF QUITS
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TRUCK BAN RETURNS STARTING SEPT. 15, NO DELIVERIES FROM 6-10 A.M. By Sara Susanne D. Fabunan, Joel Zurbano and Francisco Tuyay
A PALACE official on Saturday said that the Metro Manila Development Authority has released a new traffic scheme including a truck ban that would help ease the traffic woes in the metropolis. Presidential deputy spokesperson Abigail Valte
said that starting Sept.15, provincial buses will no
longer be allowed to enter the Edsa underpass and instead should stay in the yellow lane that the MMDA has designated. Aside from the provincial buses, container trucks will not also be allowed to make their deliveries to different provinces during rush hours, specifically from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. everyday except Sundays and holidays. “This will take effect immediately,” Valte said in a radio interview over
state-owned Radyo ng Bayan. The MMDA, however, would still allow northbound container trucks to make their deliveries 24 hours a day subject to “several prohibited dates.” “We are helping out MMDA in disseminating this information so it would be easier for them to implement [this new traffic scheme immediately]” she added. Last week, President Benigno Aquino III has designated Cabinet Secretary Jose Rene Almendras to head an interagency task force that would coordi-
nate government actions to solve the traffic problem in Metro Manila. Last year, the MMDA has reimplemented the truck ban along major thoroughfares of Roxas Boulevard, which the business sector said resulted in a 30-percent loss in the movement of goods. The business sector also claimed that it dramatically lowered the efficiency of trade to and from the port, prompting the MMDA to lift the truck ban. Next page
TOUGH NUT TO CRACK. Despite criticism from the business community, the government said it will reimpose a truck ban in Metro Manila because of the worsening traffic situation. File photo shows the congestion last February, a day after Manila lifted the truck ban it had earlier imposed.
LOURD OF CREATIONS
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CBCP, MILITANTS WEIGH IN ON LUMAD By Maricel V. Cruz, Francisco Tuyay and Florante Solmerin CONTRARY to President Benigno Aquino III’s claim that there is no policy to kill or harass tribesmen, the leftist Bagong Alyansang Makabayan said such a policy against tribesmen, called
lumad, is part of the administration’s “Whole of Nation Initiative” and the military’s Oplan Bayanihan. Even Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines president and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas lamented that the militarybacked Magahat-Bagani murdered tribesmen and caused a flood of refu-
gees in Tandag City in Surigao del Sur. But the military said on Saturday that it would welcome any investigation on the killings of tribesmen in Mindanao even as it continued to deny any policy against indigenous people. However, Bayan secretary-general Renato Reyes Jr. said his group obtained a Next page