GSIS: Publish list of major deadbeats

According to a report on the ABS-CBN News website, “the debt-ridden Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) has seen a possible solution to stay afloat and pay its housing and educational plan holders. The solution is to force some of the agency’s executives to go on forced retirement, as well as sell its painting collection and real estate properties.”

Good luck to GSIS President Roberto Vergara on that fund raising plan. They must be dreaming or smoking some illegal substance if they truly believe what they told ABS-CBN that they can earn up to P500 million if they can sell the paintings in the GSIS museum. I doubt if the paintings including Juan Luna’s “Parisian Life,” which the GSIS bought for P46 million in 2001 can collectively raise P200 million quickly.

What GSIS should do is to go hammer and tongs after the politicians and their cronies who owe GSIS a lot of money. It is unfortunate that Ate Glue appointed an ego-maniac to head GSIS who did all sorts of things except serve the interests of the government employees. He bought paintings and engaged in heated (and expensive) predatory moves on Meralco and other private sector businesses.

Now, it seems the good guys P-Noy appointed to run GSIS have to spend a lot of time housecleaning before they can even get down to the business of professionally running a pension fund for government employees. Bitay Lacson, Mr Vergara and the board of trustees must have the guts to soon find out how committed P-Noy is in going through the daang matuwid in running GSIS. Politics, being what it is here, could get in the way of good governance.

Perhaps, the next thing the GSIS management must do now is to publish a list of past due accounts over P10 million including details on the principals of corporations who got the loans. Indeed, Courage and other government workers unions should demand it be done. With known FG altar boys in the board of the past board, the list should not be too surprising but should be made public anyway. GSIS members should know who and where to picket next.

I am sure the GSIS can raise more funds by going after the deadbeats who got loans in the past than by selling their paintings. According to the ABS-CBN story, Mr. Vergara has no illusions either. “While the plan is not expected to pay for all of the GSIS’ debts estimated at P15 billion, Vergara said the proposal will help the agency raise money to meet its responsibilities to members.”

I have seen how Mr. Vergara squirmed while being interviewed on TV Patrol. I get the feeling that he is a professional who gave up a lucrative funds management career abroad to make a difference in public service. I hope P-Noy will give him his total support once he starts collecting from cronies of past administrations, specially the last one.

But GSIS should go ahead and retire as planned, three executive vice-presidents, three senior vice-presidents, and 10 vice-presidents. GSIS is too top heavy anyway and its executives and board members too well compensated for the quality of service delivered to its members. It was shocking to hear that the past board members got P11 million each annually. Unfortunately, the most we can do now is ask Kim Henares to check if they paid the right amount of taxes.

Political will

Former NAIA GM Ed Manda wrote “I totally agree with you that air traffic can be improved going by the benchmarking against similarly situated airports, if the Palace will exercise political will to transfer the general aviation facilities elsewhere. I tried it sometime in 2002, but stiff resistance and intense lobbying against the idea killed the project. NAIA management can’t do it alone. 

“It’s about time that gen-av concessionaires think of the country’s interest to catch up with the intensely competitive Asian airport hubs. Take your pick...Clark, Sangley or Lipa. With the seamless road network in SLEX/Star Toll, I will bet on Lipa. In addition, Lipa is within the Mega Manila corridor.”

But I guess that political will Manda is talking about is still in short supply. I just got a letter from DOTC Secretary Ping de Jesus and he is still talking of interim measures to alleviate the congestion problems. The relocation of the general aviation sector out of NAIA is still a three year plan with a promise to identify a general aviation hub “soon” for development.

Specifically, aviation schools have three months to plan relocation in nearby provincial airports and nine months to actually move out. Air taxi operators will have six months to plan relocation and two years to move out. I think the general aviation sector had been given enough time already if what Mr. Manda is saying is true… that they have been told as early as 2002.

On night flights, Secretary de Jesus has instructed the CAAP “to begin to equip our high-traffic airports outside Manila (e.g. Kalibo, Puerto Princesa, Tacloban, Tagbilaran) for night time operation.” As proposed by the local airline industry, night operations will allow spreading out of movements over 22 hours at NAIA, resulting in an average of 29-30 movements per hour. That is however, half of what comparable airports abroad are doing as early as in the 70s.

The most contentious of the interim measures that Sec de Jesus said they will implement has to do with “slotting.” This is how Mr. De Jesus explained it in a letter to me:

“Airlines for both domestic and international operations must acquire runway, and terminal slots from CAB which, in turn, will strictly implement the scheduled slotting. Henceforth, the CAB will not approve any flight that is not “slotted.” To implement this, the following will be done:

“a) The MIAA has been directed to create a Slot Committee composed of MIAA as Chair, the CAAP and CAB as Members.  The Slot Committee will equitably allocate slots for runway and terminal use for all airlines operating in the NAIA.

“b) Slot approvals will be based on “historical ownership” – meaning, carriers get such slots once it is established that they have been using such time slots for some time.

“c) Domestic slots shall be available on a first-come first served basis.

“d) All slot allocations and schedules shall be done on a six-month basis.

“e) Arrivals will have priority over departures - to avoid situations when carriers would be holding over NAIA longer than they should.

“f) The Slot Committee will endeavor to maintain a flight sequence not to exceed 36 flight movements per hour.”

The most obvious question is: how did government determine that it’s only 36? What is the true, real capacity of NAIA, given its physical layout, the mix of aircraft flying, the training of our air traffic controllers, the safety rules in place, etc.? 

Effectively, slotting involves deciding on how to cut the pie, there must be some agreement on the size of the pie. As I pointed out last Wednesday, there are other similar airports abroad that are able to safely achieve a higher limit than 36.

And because of the vital role that air travel plays in the economy, DOTC must also tell us now how they plan to grow that pie in the coming years. So far, the interim proposals Secretary De Jesus wrote me about involves allocating a limited resource (runway capacity), but not how to increase that vital resource through better managemeent.

Now, I want to give the last word to Mr. Manda… “What seems to be a major irritant in Terminal 1’s foul smelling toilets… has a minor solution. Tap Maynilad or Manila Water instead of using contaminated and foul smelling water from the deepwells.”

Common sense solution, indeed! I wonder why they, including Mr. Manda, didn’t think of doing that a long time ago.

Job tenure

Jose Maria Castro Jr. posted this on Facebook:

Overheard at a class reunion:

“How long have you been working at that office?”

“Ever since they threatened to fire me.”

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. He is also on Twitter @boochanco