By JOSEPH G. LARIOSA

(© 2010 Journal Group Link International)

C HICAGO (jGLi) – The hundreds of Balikbayan boxes that will remain unclaimed will be auctioned off by the Philippine Bureau of Customs, not by the Philippine Shippers Bureau.

This was the clarification issued Monday (Jan. 31) by Glenn G. Penaranda, Special Trade Representative of the Philippine Trade & Investment Center in Chicago, Illinois, as he appealed to the media to “assist in sharing this information with concerned parties.”

In an unprecedented move, the PSB is holding a Mediation Meeting Tuesday (Feb. 1) at 1 p.m. at the PSB office at 2/F Trade & Industry Building, 361 Senator Gil Puyat Avenue, Makati City, between the local cargo forwarder, Total Line, and consignees of hundreds of Balikbayan boxes that never got to their destinations last Christmas.

Parties who cannot make it to the meeting are urged to call and file their complaints with Marceliano P. Bernal, Jr., Chief, Freight Center, Philippine Shippers Bureau, Telephone No. 890.4892.

The meeting will discuss the case of the Shipping Express based in Chicago, which failed to make good its promise to deliver Balikbayan boxes it accepted back in October to deliver the boxes in time for Christmas.

Shippers of Balikbayan boxes in Chicago are urged to encourage their consignees to attend the meeting or call PSB to stake their claims to their Balikbayan boxes.

Any unclaimed box would later be sold at public auction by the Bureau of Customs.

The delay in the delivery of Balikbayan boxes does not appear to be isolated to Shipping Express owned by Robert and Hazel Cirera.

SHIPPING EXPRESS NOT ALONE

A representative of another Chicago-based cargo forwarder, Aerosend, invited this reporter to a letter posted in its website, addressed to its clients, saying that, “the current delays are caused by a number of things. First, due to some threats, there is an increased security check by the U.S. Customs on the containers leaving the U.S. This causes a three- to four-week delay and, as a result, containers (of Balikbayan boxes) miss their vessel schedule.”

Ferdie Santos of Aerosend added the next would be congestion at the transshipment port, in the Balikbayan box container’s case in Taiwan. Due to this, the containers are left behind by the feeder vessels, leaving for the Philippines from that port, resulting in at least a one-week delay - comparable to missing the connecting flight in a plane.

The next, Mr. Santos said, would be the Philippine port congestion, which can also be compared to a plane arriving at its destination but having to wait on the tarmac for a gate to be open to unload passengers. After the containers are unloaded from the ships, these fall in line for scanning. This congestion alone caused heavy delays that were further compounded by holidays and scanner maintenance.

He said the result is that containers are stacked up in the Manila port. “Our delivery team in the Philippines tries their best to deliver what they can for the same budget that we have computed before all these delays during which time fuel costs have gone up since and the dollar has weakened. “Consequently, our delivery team has limited capabilities to deliver all of the contents of these containers at the same time.”

So, Aerosend is releasing its containers one at a time and have the contents  stored in the ports where they would be safe while we get them delivered safely. To have these containers released all at once could mean disaster due to the risk of being stolen and ransacked despite increased security. Secondary delays are due to costs being so high that we have to group the packages so that we maximize the space utilization on our trucks and containers going to other islands.

AEROSEND HAS NOT LOST A BOX