Provincial officials of Pampanga call for the synchronization of weighing standards and procedures for trucks plying the roads in the province.
This developed as Atty. Andres Pangilinan, Jr., provincial administrator, and Arthur Punsalan, head of the Environment and Natural Resources Office (ENRO) presided over a meeting of truckers and agencies concerned in the maintenance of provincial, municipal, and barangay roads.
Before the meeting, not one among the trucks weighed using the digital weighing scales met with the allowable weight capacity.
It will be recalled that Governor Lilia G. Pineda and the Sangguniang Panlalawigan had agreed with truckers associations in Pampanga and other Central Luzon provinces that their load per truck be weighed and an additional P30 be charged to come up with weigh bridges in strategic places province-wide.
Punsalan said “we need to protect our roads from damage wrought by overloaded vehicles even as we protect the rights of truckers to fair fees”.
In a follow up meeting called by the provincial government, Pangilinan stressed the importance of properly implementing the law on anti-overloading.
“There are two bases for determining if a vehicle complies with the law – if its weight is within the anti-overloading matrix and if it is within the gross weight capacity registered with the Land Transportation Office (LTO).”
He stressed that the lack of synchronized standards of measure among agencies involved poses a problem in the implementation of weighing scale procedures. He said further that the LTO uses the gross weight capacity (GWC) while the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) and the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx) use the axel load system.
This lack of synchronicity, Punsalan, explained, poses a dilemma for truckers as to which standards of measure they should conform with.
Regional Director Oliver Macaspac of the LTO supported this claim sharing that when they apprehend vehicles which do not meet the requirements of the GWC limits, the latter question the LTO move since they claim to have passed the NLEx and SCTEx allowable capacity.
Pangilinan advised the truckers to coordinate with the LTO regarding the conversion of registered allowable limit from 20,000 to 27,500 GWC. He also expressed the need to amend the anti-overloading law to standardize the measurement of the allowable load capacity of vehicles.
Punsalan lamented the lack of NLEx and SCTEx representatives in the recent meeting. He also announced that another meeting will be called immediately and “ensure that all agencies concerned will be present so we can form a technical working group that would formulate solid decisions to address the issues on damaged roads and truckers’ concerns”. (PIO Pampanga)
