Opinion

Ang stakes name on correcting NAIA

GOTCHA - Jarius Bondoc - The Philippine Star

October 18, 2024 | 12:00am

Half-serious, Cito Beltran warned me, “If you write that, they’ll grab the money for Maharlika Fund.” He’s right. They can plunder it like they did Oct. 16 to another P30 billion of PhilHealth, for pork barrels.

But exposure to sunlight kills the corruption virus.

This concerns P2 billion in terminal fees that Manila International Airport Authority must refund. The past admin nearly pocketed it. But three honest MIAA board directors averted the crime then.

Half the P2 billion was collected from overseas Filipino workers. On purchasing tickets, OFWs paid terminal fee through airlines to MIAA. Government ordered MIAA to refund OFWs as far back as 2017. But of millions of them, only 30 took time out to take back P550 for international flights and P200 for domestic.

That initial P1 billion doubled during pandemic. Many were unable to retrieve fees from cancelled flights and numerous Covid checkpoints to NAIA.

The P2 billion was untouched during his stint, July 2022-December 2023, MIAA ex-general manager Cesar Chiong assured. The only change they did was transfer it to an interest-bearing deposit, from a no-interest one.

Smart move by Chiong’s board. Why did the previous one favor the bank with P2-billion interest-free deposit? Sa magkanong dahilan? Let’s pray the P2 billion, now with interest, is intact under the present MIAA board.

Chiong had departed in a blaze of glory. Before that, the ombudsman unjustly suspended him on complaint of anonymous MIAA officials for reassigning 285 employees. Business groups howled in protest. Personnel shuffling for better operations is a management prerogative. Besides, many of them had requested reposting to begin with.

The real reason for the unnamed officials’ grudge surfaced later. They resented Chiong’s promotion of longtime MIAA reformist Irene Montalbo as assistant GM. Dismissing all charges, the Court of Appeals reinstated the two.

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Instead of returning to MIAA, Chiong retired. San Miguel Corp. recently hired him to help Ramon S. Ang and Lito Alvarez run the New NAIA Infra Corp.

NNIC took over NAIA Sept. 14 as private operator. For 15 years NNIC must upgrade facilities and revenues. Government is to get 82 percent or P36 billion a year. Meaning, NNIC must gross P50 billion. MIAA is to remain as regulator. But per contract, NNIC will have the last say in improvements.

NAIA was hot news twice recently. First was when it raised parking fees to P50 for the first two, plus P25 per succeeding hour. Newsfeeds claimed it was unfair to employees, majority of whom don’t drive cars but take shuttles to and from work.

It turned out that the anonymous grumblers were those who took advantage of NAIA’s cheap overnight parking. Like, residents and habitus of nearby condos and casinos. Also “contractors” of airport taxis and limos that should have their own garages.

Real passengers, mostly frequent flyers, accepted the higher rates. Three hours is only $1.40, much less than $5 in Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Paris, Dubai. By freeing up 1,800 three-hour parking slots, Terminal 3 alone now has 14,400 usable spaces per day.

Second was when NNIC cancelled all special entry passes. All passengers henceforth are to be treated as VIPs. Only VVIPs may secure passes, at higher rates.

Behind the scenes are huge improvements and investments that passengers don’t know of. “But they’ll feel those in terms of comfort and convenience,” Ang beamed:

• Wider roads and more exits to Terminals 1, 2 and 3; directional signs; flood clearing around NAIA complex. Ang had cleaned up Pasig, Tullahan and Tatalon Rivers on his own for P3 billion in three years, making most of Metro Manila flood free. What more the narrower estuaries near NAIA.

• Meralco will set up a power substation exclusively for NAIA. (Adjacent establishments had connected to the old one.) The high-voltage facility can fluctuate only ten times a year at most, no longer thrice daily. Five giant uninterruptible power supplies, each the size of a ten-foot cargo container, will be on standby. Generators will kick in to recharge them. Objective: airport, airline and ancillary services will go on even during city blackouts.

• Lightning dissipators will replace arresters in the open space. A virtual invisible shield above NAIA will prevent frequent, hours-long cessation of tarmac and runway works during thunderstorms. No more deaths from lightning strikes.

• Three taxiways will be paved for swifter runway clearing. Takeoffs and landings will be increased 25 percent, from 38 to 48 per hour. An additional concourse for Terminal 2 will rise from the demolished Philippine Village Hotel.

• Airlines will be reassigned: all PAL international and domestic flights, mostly connected, at T1; Cebu Pacific domestic, 52 percent of traffic, to T2; all other international, to T3. T4 will be refurbished for all other domestic runs.

• Within a year an exclusive terminal will be erected for general aviation, with CIQ booths. Perhaps they’ll no longer have to pay $450 to Customs, $300 to Immigration and $300 to Quarantine – P57,750 – per executive jet.

• Better air conditioning, new baggage conveyor belts, more toilets and airbridges. Less souvenir shops and restaurants, with leases same as in shopping malls, so food must cost the same.

Privileged monopolies expectedly will resist changes. One is a cargo handler nearest the terminal ramp. In 2020 a court ordered the closure of a NAIA gate through which competitors pass to get there. This year, on petition of a supposed passenger rights group, another court ordered closure of a second gate.

In both cases the petitioners claimed to own the land where the gates stand. Yet MIAA holds all the titles. Apparently, the monopoly was behind them.

It is to government’s interest that more cargo firms operate at NAIA.