Aquino: Interest of OFWs outweigh ex-PAL workers

Business Mirror
October 13, 2011
By Mia M. Gonzalez


While the government would like to sympathize with Philippine Airlines (PAL) workers hurt by the company’s outsourcing scheme, President Aquino said on Wednesday its greater concern is the 10 million Filipino workers abroad, especially those in the Middle East, who would be at risk if the national carrier cannot resume normal operations.

“There is no perfect solution to the mess” confronting PAL, he told members of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.              

“If you define the national interest, there are 10 million Filipinos overseas. With what has been happening in the Middle East, one would want our airlines capable of going to the Middle East to fetch our citizens,” he said.

He said the government “could not allow” an airline to become “non-entities” such that it could not be called upon to repatriate overseas Filipinos.

“The interests of the 10 million outweigh the thousands, the 2,000 or so, that were affected by PAL,” Mr. Aquino said.

He said PAL’s decision to reformat the corporation to survive is “part and parcel of the changing realities with the economic situation in the entire world.”

The President also said he hopes the Supreme Court ruling reversing its decision to order the reinstatement of 1,400 Philippine Airlines workers in 1998 would not lead to “more disruptions.”

“We will appeal to the Supreme Court perhaps to hasten the processes,” he said.

Meanwhile, the PAL Employees Association (Palea) insisted again on Wednesday that the airline’s outsourcing plan has failed.

“Just tell the truth that the outsourcing plan has failed because of the lack of skilled manpower and not because of an absurd fairy tale of harassment coming from Palea,” Palea President Gerry Rivera said in a statement.

Palea said it mobilized its members and supporters to another mass action on Wednesday near the entrance of Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2. A simultaneous action was also to be held in Cebu.

The group also said “local civil-society groups” have launched a boycott against the airline on the Internet.

It claimed trade union groups from the United States, Europe, Australia, Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia have “already expressed their solidarity” with Palea and are planning to hold protest actions “most probably at the Philippine consulate offices.”

Palea members have set up a protest camp outside PAL’s In-Flight Services building.