Why the empty container crisis needs depots, rails, and barges, not just rules.
In the first week of October, customs brokers staged a digital protest, holding back gate passes and terminal bookings, while five truckers’ groups declared a trucking holiday. Their first grievance was the same one heard in 2019, again during the pandemic, and again this February: there is nowhere to return the empty boxes. Earlier this year, yard utilization at the Manila International Container Port and Manila South Harbor breached 100%.
In my last column, I argued that the proposed Joint Administrative Order (JAO) is the unified mandate that old customs orders never were. As of this writing, the Department of Finance has signed it, and the other agencies are finalizing their comments. That is progress. But we should be clear about what a JAO can and cannot do. It can regulate how shipping lines charge, allocate space, and retrieve their equipment. It cannot pour concrete, lay rail, or change where our cargo goes. At its root, the empty-container problem is one of physical capacity and flow, and it demands long-term, government-led infrastructure.
Why the Boxes Keep Coming Back
The crisis is structural. We import far more than we export; terminal operators have long cited a ratio of roughly three laden import containers for every laden export container, so empties accumulate by design. Nearly all of them converge on Manila, move by truck alone, and must be returned to private container yards that carriers arrange on their own commercial terms. When those yards fill, trucks become mobile storage units, and laden boxes sit waiting at the terminal.
The Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) has said the long-term solution is for foreign shipping lines to build more empty-container yards, with Valenzuela, Bulacan, Cavite, and Laguna proposed as locations. The PPA is right that carriers own the containers and should bear the costs. But leaving the location, scale, and connectivity of that capacity to individual carriers is precisely how we got here. In previous years, the PPA’s TOP-CRMS, designed to create additional return spaces and track container movements, was suspended following stakeholder objections and is no longer being pursued.
Even the JAO presumes there is somewhere to send the boxes. Its yard-utilization trigger, 5% above a default 75% threshold for 15 consecutive days, compels the transfer of laden containers, and its rule that carriers secure at least 130% of their projected daily inventory pushes them to find space.Triggers move boxes. They do not magically create places to put them.
What Our ASEAN Neighbors Built
Our neighbors face the same trade imbalances and urban congestion. The difference is that their governments decided where the empties go and how they get there.
- Thailand. The State Railway of Thailand bought the land and has operated the Lat Krabang Inland Container Depot since 1996, about 200 acres east of Bangkok, with customs on site and modules mostly concessioned to shipping lines, as a satellite of Laem Chabang. In September 2026, the Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister ordered a joint road, rail, and port timetable for the depot, and the proposed 20-year concession requires at least half of its annual container traffic to move by rail.
- Vietnam. In 2023, the Prime Minister approved a national inland port master plan targeting 25–30% of import-export container demand through inland ports by 2030, with 11.9 to 17.1 million TEUs of capacity. Around Cat Lai, carriers shifted operations to ICD Long Binh in Dong Nai, letting nearby factories drop off and pick up empties locally, with estimated logistics savings of more than 10%.
- Malaysia. In March 2026, the Transport Ministry directed that empty containers may no longer be stored in Port Klang’s yards and must move to off-port depots, with the land transport agency ensuring those depots run 24 hours to match port operations. Earlier, a ministry-directed task force under the Port Klang Authority, with Customs and quarantine on board, cut yard utilization from 90% to 82% and berth waiting from five days to under 24 hours.
- Indonesia. Cikarang Dry Port, about 50 kilometers from Tanjung Priok, combines customs clearance, bonded transfer under electronic seals, and an empty container depot in one integrated facility.
The common thread is not tougher memoranda. The government plans the network, land, zoning, customs presence, and rail and barge access, while private operators run it under binding conditions.
A Government-Led Agenda for the Long Term
We have studied this for more than a decade. As early as 2013, the PPA proposed rail links, dry ports, and barge services along the Subic–Clark–Manila–Batangas corridor. The Philippine Institute for Development Studies recommended routing cargo through Batangas and Subic and adopting a national multimodal plan. What has been missing is execution.
Five long-term actions deserve priority:
- A national inland depot and empty-return network. The Department of Transportation (DOTr) and PPA, with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Bureau of Customs (BOC), economic zone authorities, and local governments, should designate north and south depot zones on public or ecozone land, bid them out as public-private partnership concessions, and require carriers to commit capacity there. Each should be customs-bonded, so clearance and empty return happen near the factories, not at the waterfront.
- Shift the mode, not just the box. The Subic–Clark–Manila–Batangas freight railway, now receiving US-funded technical assistance that includes a port-rail integration study, must incorporate inland depots into its stations from the start. Scale up barge services to Cavite and Laguna with incentives, and, as in Thailand, include rail and barge share targets in concessions.
- Spread the gateway. Batangas and Subic still have room to grow. Calibrate port charges, customs staffing, and berthing incentives so cargo near those ports actually uses them, easing Manila’s share of both laden and empty boxes.
- Make empty evacuation a port obligation. Voluntary arrangements such as the Empty Load Out Shipping Alliance at Manila South Harbor demonstrate what is possible. PPA should make empty evacuation a condition of berth windows, and the 90-day re-exportation rule under CAO 08-2019 should be linked to a reformed digital container registry that shows, in real time, where every foreign box is and where return space exists.
- A standing institution with a capital agenda. The JAO’s inter-agency oversight committee should not devolve into a complaints desk. It should be anchored in a national logistics master plan with a multi-year infrastructure pipeline and a dedicated coordinating role, as the 2016 multimodal transport and logistics roadmap already envisioned.
Who pays?
Carriers should pay through depot-capacity commitments, user fees, and a container-return performance bond set under the JAO, administered by the BOC as lead agency and enforced by the PPA as a condition of port access. Government pays in land, access roads, rail, and the discipline to plan beyond one administration. That division of burden is what separates a functioning market from a recurring crisis.
Rules First, Then Roads
The JAO determines who owns the box: the shipping lines, and it must hold them to account. The harder question is who builds the way out.
Without depots, road access, rail, and barges in the right places, the JAO’s triggers will fire into full yards, and the next trucking holiday will only be a matter of time.
Rules restore discipline; only infrastructure restores flow. Both are the government’s responsibility to lead.
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