Can PAL Be Saved? Few Options Left

Manila Standard

Monday, September 21, 1998

By EMIL P. JURADO

WE cannot underestimate the adverse effects of the closure of 57-year-old Philippine Airlines, the oldest in Asia, on the lives of all Filipinos.

Tourism, business and industry and the 9,000 soon-to-be-jobless PAL employees are not the only ones affected. Ordinary Filipinos who depend on the national flag carrier are going to be hurt as well.

For instance, there's this Bacolod resident who has bought a car to ferry passengers from Bacolod airport to the city. Now he doesn't know what to do. He is just one of the millions of victims of the PAL shutdown.

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Can PAL be saved?

No less than President Estrada has entered the picture to find out how to convince PAL management and its labor unions to agree to a compromise to save the airline. The outlook is dim, though.

Foremost in the President's mind is the national interest since the demise of PAL comes at a time when the nation is facing an economic and monetary crisis. It would not have come at a worse time.

There are a few options left, like other domestic airlines flying PAL routes. But with Air Philippines and Grand Air grounded, the problem is exacerbated.

Foreign airlines coming in is also a problem because the Constitution mandates that

public utilities should at least be 60 percent Filipino.

A government takeover of PAL, if only temporarily, is a last recourse if a management-labor compromise is not possible. But a takeover poses dire consequences, since it would send the wrong message to foreign inventors.

A happy compromise could be a five-year CBA strike moratorium to give PAL a chance to breathe. Sadly, both management and labor unions appear unhappy over this compromise, since Lucio Tan had already committed to his creditors a 10-year CBA moratorium.

A five-year CBA moratorium is feasible and legal. It has been done many times. Even the Supreme Court has granted this compromise in many cases.

Now, if only the unions stop thinking only of themselves but of public and national interest as well.