Palace defends decision to stop airport protests

The Philippine Star
By Aurea Calica
October 02, 2011 12:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang defended yesterday the decision of airport authorities to stop the protests held inside the facility.

“What the government is after is the security of the airport and the safety of the passengers and again, we’d like to appeal to Philippine Airlines (PAL) to normalize their operations as early as possible,” presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said in a press briefing.

“We would ask all parties to be level-headed and come up with a resolution to this impasse,” he said.

Lacierda also said there was no decision if charges would be filed against the workers who held a strike despite an earlier agreement with PAL management and mediators that they would not hold any work stoppage.

He said the strikers were not allowed to disrupt airport services and thus were asked to move out.

“The purpose for that is to make sure that the security of the airport is guaranteed more than anything else. It is a public place and considering that they – the PALEA employees involved – were not only (manning the) ticketing counter but also those handling areas which are sensitive in nature. For instance, luggage handling, those that we do not see in the frontline. So our concern is for the security of the airport. So that is the primary purpose of the actions taken by the MIAA (Manila International Airport Authority) management,” Lacierda said.

He said he could not see any violation of the rights of the strikers.

“We respect their right to air their grievances. We respect their right to voice out but we also would like to ask them to strike in the proper places. This is a time and regulation situation. We cannot allow all the passengers to be affected and the economy is being gravely affected by that,” he said. – With Rudy Santos