Getting back what is ours

“Wala na bang iba? (Are there no others).” That was once the desperate cry of an opposition congressman trying to find brave souls on the Congress floor to join in their fight against a “corrupt administration.” Today people are wondering if there is nothing else worth talking about except Janet Lim Napoles and her pork barrel scam. Don’t get me wrong, we all want the case to go to court and we want all the lurid details out in public, but in terms of the administration’s quest to expose or unearth “acts that are highly disadvantageous to the government” or corrupt practices, it surprises me that President Noynoy Aquino has not shown any interest or perhaps found the time and team to investigate “Lihis-lations” or laws passed by the “Arroyo Congress” which have ultimately resulted to highly disadvantageous conditions to the Philippine government, business and industry.

One of my friends who has been in the forefront of Philippine travel and tourism and has actively hosted events and gatherings that promote a better understanding of tourism and travel concerns, sent me the following message on Facebook in an effort to bring attention to issues and suspicions concerning the one-sided, non-reciprocal operations of foreign airlines. According to Bobby Joseph there is a serious need to review and monitor government regulation of airline operations in the Philippines as well as the influx and pressure being exerted by foreign airlines to expand their operations in the Philippines. One of Bobby’s concerns is the reported announcement of the DOTC that the government will be giving 5th freedom rights to foreign carriers. His Facebook message was:

“The 5th freedom allows any carrier to fly beyond Manila. Example, Singapore Airlines can fly Singapore to Clark and beyond, say Los Angeles, or any destination. This will kill the local carriers. What we are only asking is reciprocity. Singapore cannot give us a 5th freedom from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur in exchange of Clark to Los Angeles. The market between America and the Philippines should be solely for American carriers and the Philippine carriers. What is worst is during the time of GMA in 2006 she signed an agreement with the United States allowing three American carriers to operate in the Philippines and beyond. They have all the right to come to the country and operate beyond the Philippines, say to any Asian destination. Example: they can sell Manila-Bangkok-Manila tickets or Manila-Hong Kong-Manila tickets and fly back to the US after scouring all the passengers they can get. When this is implemented the Philippine carriers will be limited to domestic because they wont be able to compete any longer. This is the only country in the world that will allow it. Imagine we were in category two and Asian carriers will take advantage of this 5th freedom right in November. What happens to PAL? Since this is a CAB affair why is CAAP negotiating? Abaya is not familiar with airline operations, he must be getting instructions from whom? The GSA commissions and the success fees will amount to billions if this happens. Payments will be made abroad to avoid any paper trail and the BIR cannot be in the loop.”

I was told by my CAAP contact that the reason the DOTC Secretary’s name pops up is because the DOTC Secretary is the official chairman of the CAB and that the CAAP has one slot in the board. So if they are “involved” it is because its part of their job.

To be honest all this is rocket science to me, but what I’ve managed to dig up regarding airline and travel concerns from a number of people is that the Philippines is at a very great disadvantage. US and Middle East Airlines as well as some regional airlines have been harvesting passengers both inbound and outbound based on what the Arroyo government and Congress had passed into law. Technically the arrangement is suppose to be a fair and reciprocal arrangement where local airlines such as PAL, Cebu Pacific, and Zest Air would have the same number of slots or opportunities to fly into “partner countries.”

But the bad part of the deal is that Philippine carriers are not getting a reciprocal deal and being given all sorts of denials, restrictions or requirements to prevent them from coming into those markets. Adding insult to injury, these foreign carriers not only load up passengers from their port of origin to the Philippines, they pick-up passengers from the Philippines back to their port via a round trip route as well as passengers heading to a destination midway. They not only make money both ways, they even have an in-between stop that also earns them more money. To make matters worse, many Middle East carriers are operating with fuel subsidies from their oil rich governments unlike in the Philippines where airlines even have to pay high taxes for fuel. Bobby Joseph told me that in the case of some regional airlines, a few are actually government owned corporations or government supported.

Recently my more senior fellow Babes Romualdez wrote about how Qatar Airways “was rebuffed tersely” by CAB Executive Director Carmelo Arcilla. What I was told by insiders was it was ironic that Arcilla was singled out on the issue considering many of the local carriers don’t exactly appreciate his being “Pro-Open Skies.” If Arcilla were anti-foreign airlines, a number of those companies would not be enjoying such high numbers of slots/flights to Manila where Qatar Airways operates 14 flights to Manila to the disadvantage of PAL and Cebu Pacific.

The Civil Aeronautics Board clearly finds themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place now that local airlines such as PAL, Cebu Pacific and Zest Air are working hard to become viable and pushing for real “reciprocity” and fair bilateral arrangements. As unpleasant as the situation is, it is about time that the Philippines and the local airline companies got respect from foreign operators. Now that we have Category 1, lets make up for all the losses and stop giving away what is ours.