Workers dare government to reveal details of airport contract

Aviation workers want the government to reveal the provisions of the 25-year contract it entered into with the consortium that will build Terminal 3 at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) because they fear the agreement would leave them jobless and dislocate operations in the aviation sector.

The accord, the workers said, should undergo a thorough review in which the proponents may incorporate amendments into the document and consequently assure the affected parties that the $500-million project was done aboveboard.

"Officials of the Philippine International Air Terminals Co. (Piatco) claim the terms and conditions of the contract had passed the scrutiny of the House of Representatives. If so, did the House conduct a public hearing on the project?," asked the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA), one of the workers’ groups that has questioned the deal.

Piatco won the bid to construct Terminal 3 under a build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme.

PALEA, led by its holdover officers Romy Sauler, Rene Legaspi and Renato Eblo, dared Transportation Secretary Pantaleon Alvarez to disclose details of the contract given the official’s pronouncements that the government was transparent in signing the deal with Piatco.

Contrary to Alvarez’s claim, the group stressed that three subsequent "amended concessions" were incorporated into the agreement reportedly without the knowledge of local service providers whose businesses and employees would be "severely prejudiced and discriminated against by the Piatco contract."

They said Terminal 3 would fall short of its target of 13 million passengers per year due to infrastructure constraints at the country’s premier airport. "The proposed terminal is huge, but NAIA has only one runway that actually needs major repairs, meaning airline traffic is tight. Take the Honolulu international airport — though the terminal there is not advanced, the gateway has four runways."

Situated at Fort Villamor, Terminal 3, when completed, will replace the 20-year-old NAIA Terminal 1, which will be converted along with Terminal 2 into a domestic terminal.

However, PALEA pointed out, the venue of Terminal 3 is "perpetually jammed" and leads to traffic-prone EDSA and South Superhighway. "Why build an additional terminal at NAIA, which has only one runway and far from being excellent?"

The workers also described as onerous a provision of the contract which guarantees Piatco to have the exclusive right to operate a commercial international passenger terminal within Luzon with the government committed to shut down Terminals 1 and 2 as international passenger terminals.