‘DEAR SECRETARY TUGADE'

FRIENDS assure me that you are a hard worker. Your integrity is beyond question, they say. I am glad to hear this. Any honest, hardworking man would appreciate the concerns of our overseas workers. Let me raise one particular concern of theirs, through this open letter.

- ers have always enjoyed an exemption granted under Republic Act No. 8042, which was later amended by Republic Act No. 10022. That exemption pertains to the payment of airport terminal fees now known as the International Passenger Service Charge ( IPSC), and the paying these fees was strictly observed.

Authority ( MIAA), under the disastrous leadership of General Manager Jose Angel Honrado, started its unlawful collection of airport terminal fees from our terminal fee.

been paying P550 to an agency that doesn’t even have only to be asked to line up before they return to their place of work to retrieve the P550. Ask them, please, Mr. Secretary, how much have been collected from payments does MIAA have in its possession. They don’t know. No one knows.

Will you allow this scheme to continue? You certainly have sufficient basis to call for a suspension. Look at the records. Twenty senators signed a resolution calling for the IPSC to be suspended. The Depart and Employment have issued separate position papers stating that the IPSC violates existing laws protecting the rights and welfare of our modern- day heroes.

Please, Mr. Secretary, dwell on this. Our government is to serve as the collecting agent for airport terminal fees.

[The Times has started running this column from last Monday. Today ,“Policy Wink” talks about the unlawful