Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:09:00 04/05/2011
By Daxim L. Lucas
Outsourcing, anyone?
A TORCH rally by some 500 Philippine Airlines ground workers and their militant supporters caused bedlam near the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) last Friday. With traffic hardly moving along the stretch of Tramo, MIA and Sucat roads, many airport-bound commuters (presumably passengers of PAL and other international airlines going to the adjacent Naia 1) were seen on foot in a desperate attempt to catch their respective flights.
Many seemed to be foreign tourists and businessmen—trolleys in tow—heading toward the two terminals on foot. PAL deployed buses to pick up passengers, but the tourists’ unpleasant experience was no doubt another disincentive for luring them back to the country, open skies notwithstanding.
That thousands of passengers and ordinary commuters can be held hostage by a small band of protesters is another wake-up call for authorities. (Why was the mass action allowed near the airport in the first place?)
Protesting workers of PAL got little sympathy from those made miserable by the anxiety of missing their flights or being late for appointments.
The supreme irony of it was that many of those at the protest rally against the flag carrier were not even PAL employees, but militants from groups like Partido Manggagawa, among others. A case of “outsourcing” rallies?—Daxim L. Lucas
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