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Undersecretary Edward Harun Pagunsan of the
Department of Transportation and Communications is again in the
news, much of it negative. The last time this DOTC functionary
generated such bad press—not only for himself, but also for the
Arroyo administration—was over three years ago.
The Philippine aviation industry
is still reeling from the consequences of the air cargo agreement to
which Pagunsan et al. “sneakily” committed the country in 2004.
The so-called Multilateral Air
Cargo Agreement allowed foreign carriers—notably Singapore
Airlines—to pick up cargo from the Philippines and fly to a
nonpact country, such as the United States. Of course, our carriers
such as Philippine Airlines may do the same in Singapore. The
problem is Singapore is a transit point, not a market source.
Singapore Airlines is one of the
biggest carriers, not only in Southeast Asia, but also in the world.
In 2004 PAL and other RP carriers were not yet in a position to
match Singapore in terms of fleet, marketing, finances and other
resources—directly traceable to hefty government subsidies. PAL
and our RP carriers had—and still have—no such advantage.
Thanks to that deal, fashioned by
Pagunsan, foreign carriers have cornered a substantial share of the
air cargo business in the Philippines.
RP-Korea air talks
Fast forward to May 2007: the
governments of the Republic of the Philippines (RP) and the Republic
of Korean (ROK) concluded air talks—and Pagunsan was at it again.
Philippine aviation sources point
out that what emerged from the negotiations—held in Davao City
under opaque, as against transparent, circumstances—undermined the
country’s sovereignty.
According to several observers,
Pagunsan disgustingly surrendered to practically all the ROK
demands.
The new agreement allows capacity
rights up to 19,000 seats weekly on RP-ROK routes—which was one of
the demands of the Koreans—as against the current 6,800 seats, a
whopping increase of 179 percent.
How can Pagunsan justify this
bloated capacity levels when ROK carriers today use up to only 8,300
seats weekly while RP airlines fly only 4,400 seats a week on the
Manila-Seoul route?
When the Koreans denied the RP
panel’s demand for daily “fifth freedom” rights—to be able
to fly from Manila to Seoul onto the US and Canada—Pagunsan hardly
put up a fight.
Instead, Pagunsan repeatedly
cited the weakness of the RP position compared to the might of the
South Koreans. He kept saying we have to bow to the more
economically and technologically advanced Koreans.
The Koreans even tried to
blackmail the Filipinos—with a walkout threat—if all of their
demands were not accepted within 30 minutes. And what did Pagunsan
do? This RP official tried to convince the members of his own
panel—including representatives from the government and Philippine
carriers—to accept the ROK demands.
If their demands were not met,
the Koreans threatened to cancel all existing “extrabilateral”
RP-ROK flights and disapprove all new applications by any RP
carrier. They also threatened to henceforth subject RP airlines to
stricter inspections and take unspecified actions against them.
The ROK panel even painted a
gloomy picture of drastically reduced Korean tourist traffic—from
600,000 to 300,000 annually—should the Filipinos not capitulate.
Under the gun
Pagunsan utterly failed to give a
firm RP response to these demands, threats and warnings. The other
RP panel members meanwhile vehemently objected to having to
negotiate “under the gun.”
Pagunsan’s behavior became more
repugnant when he negotiated with the Koreans behind the backs of
other members of the RP panel. During the crucial two-day talks in
Davao, he met privately with his ROK counterpart.
He was even reported to have
slipped out of Manila more than a month before the formal
negotiations to meet with the chairman of the ROK panel in Seoul
without the concurrence of and authority from the RP panel.
The new agreement not only failed
to secure fifth freedom rights for RP carriers between Korea and
North America, it also failed to secure reciprocal rights for
flights to Clark and Subic. By virtue of Executive Order 500-A,
Korean carriers will be able to fly to Clark and Subic, but the new
RP-ROK air agreement stipulates no reciprocal rights for RP carriers
to fly to new destinations in Korea.
Pagunsan’s failure to uphold
the country’s interests was only aggravated by the highly
irregular manner he negotiated the agreement.
The other members of the RP panel
should bring to Malacańang’s attention Pagunsan’s
questionable behavior—instead of the accolades he has been
getting for cementing a heavily lopsided agreement.
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