Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Traders want restrictions on airport use scrapped
By Dante M. Fabian
CLARK ECOZONE -- Businessmen in Pampanga are set to ask President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to amend her recent directives restricting flights at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA).
The five groups of businessmen asking for the scrapping of Arroyo's Executive Order 500A included locators and other stakeholders in the Clark Special Economic Zone.
Issued by Malacañang in August this year, the order amended Executive Order 500 and provides that only official foreign carries are entitled to liberal policies at the DMIA in Angeles City.
Business groups, including the Clark Investors and Locators Association (Cila), said the order would cripple operations at the airport and would stifle the economic boom expected to accompany commercial aviation.
Cila president Francisco Villanueva Jr. said his group and several other chambers of commerce in Pampanga are set to issue a joint resolution asking the President to scrap EO 500A.
"EO 500A imposes several restrictions that defeat the purpose of making DMIA marketable," he noted.
Other groups protesting the order include the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PamCham), Metro Angeles City Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. (MACCII), and Angeles Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
Clark International Airport Corporation (Ciac) president Jose Victor Luciano said the order would affect the plans of Tiger Airways, the Singapore-based leading budget airlines in Asia, to put up a US$300 million hub and base at least six new Airbus 320s here by January next year. Tiger Airways is not an official flag carrier like other foreign airlines now operating at the airport.
Luciano said if government would not take back the order, it would take some time for the airport, including the Subic Bay International Airport, to become viable to other airlines because of the restrictions being imposed by the Presidential directive.
During the "Kape@Balita" forum jointly sponsored by the Society of Pampanga Columnists (SPC) and Kapampangan in Media Inc. (Kami) over the weekend, Ben Solis, former general manager of the United Parcel Service (UPS), said the President might have been misled into signing EO 500A, which amended EO 500.
Executive Order 500 fully liberalized operations of foreign airlines from countries that the Philippines has air service agreements with at the DMIA.
Solis cited reports that said "someone" from the Department of Transportation and Communications crafted EO 500A purportedly to "raise the level of competency and safety of airlines."
Afraid of losing a vital economic development in the home province of the President, the Provincial Board of Pampanga was set to file a resolution urging the President to repeal EO 500A to hasten the development of Clark as the premier international gateway in the country.
In Angeles City, Councilor Lito Ganzon said City Council members are also set to file a resolution asking the President to reconsider EO 500A for the benefit of the people of the province.
Luciano said Tiger Airways alone was expected to generate almost 10 million passengers over a five-year period. It was expected to expand its network to cover routes between Clark and Thailand, Macau, China, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia and Indonesia and, possibly, Vietnam and Australia.
All these plans would come to naught under EO 500A, said Solis, who is now a Ciac consultant.
SPC chairman Caesar Lacson described EO 500A as a "nightmare" for residents of Pampanga and the rest of Central Luzon since the President vowed to transform Clark into a major Asian economic hub as legacy to her kabalen.
Presidential adviser for North Luzon Renato Diaz blamed the issuance of EO 500A on a local carrier and lambasted the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) for "entertaining" its objections to the operations of foreign airlines at DMIA.
"Why do we have to develop Clark if after all, we still have to go to Manila to fly from there?" he asked.
Ciac vice president Romeo Dyoco said DMIA now hosts 77 passenger and cargo flights weekly and that if EO 500A is scrapped, the number is expected to reach 80 per week by yearend.
The UPS, Pacific East Asia Cargo Airlines, and Yangtze River Express are among the cargo airlines operating here. The UPS has put up its hub at the Clark economic zone.
As of last August, cargo volume at Clark had reached 11,800 tons, Dyoco said.
He said the Macapagal airport hosts at least 40 international and domestic flights per week, and the number is expected to reach 70 should more carriers be allowed to come in.
He said the current number of flights at DMIA represents a 417 percent increase from only 230 flights in 2004. Last year, there were 1,188 flights.
Dyoco said the Ciac expects at least 2,500 international and domestic flights at DMIA by yearend. He said the DMIA terminal, which is up for expansion, processed 302,939 passengers from January to August this year, or an average of 37,867 passengers per month.
In 2005, the average number of passengers was only 23,067 per month, he added.
Dyoco said EO 500A proposes a maximum 30-day processing by the CAB of applications for combined international passenger-cargo transport service to and from DMIA and the Subic airport and the scheduling of consultation talks within one year with, among others, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Republic of Korea to formalize or recognize the unilateral grant of traffic rights. (Sun.Star Pampanga/Sunnex)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Cebu. (November 7, 2006 issue)
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