From one airline strike to another

Manila Standard
Tuesday, September 8, 1998
 Larry V. Sipin

LOS ANGELES, CA. -- The good news is Philippine Airlines (PAL), after the turbulence that grounded it for more than two months, is as good as ever. My flight from MLA to LAX was smooth, the service incomparable. I've flown long haul in other airlines but never enjoyed the flights. There's nothing like flying one's very own flag carrier, under the care of one's own kababayans. I sure am glad that this unplanned trip of mine to the US was timed after the PAL strike was settled.
The bad news is I landed right smack into a stateside airline strike.
A death in the family. An uncle of mine died in Honolulu.
The late Macario "Mac" Manzano, God bless his soul, was more than an uncle. He was like a father to me. As a matter of fact, I called him Papang. He was my Papang Mac.
As a kid, I thought I had two mothers — my late sainted mother and her little sister who helped her take care of me, my Mamang Sioning, Papang Mac's widow. The marriage of Mac Manzano, an Ilokano-Hawayano, to my Mamang Sioning, gave me the notion that I also had two fathers.
I just had to be by the side of my Mamang Sioning. This son must go bury his father.
The couple was blessed with two children — a boy and a girl. Sadly, the boy, my favorite cousin Melvin, died several years ago. In effect, I was left as the man in the family.
I flew to LA to spend a couple of days with my sister and her husband with whom my eldest daughter is spending an extended vacation before she, a new UP graduate, takes on the world. Together, the four of us would fly to Honolulu to pay our last respects to Papang Mac.
We were booked on Northwest Airlines.
Tough luck — Northwest went on strike.
Northwest strike. Like PAL, Northwest was grounded by its pilots.
The difference is that while the PAL pilots, to underscore their demands, did their worst to inconvenience the public and the country for that matter, the Northwest captains cooperated with their management to minimize the ill effects of the strike. For instance, even before the strike started, at least 400 flights were already canceled to give passengers time to shift to other airlines or otherwise change or alter their travel plans. In short, while the PAL pilots blitzed the public, the Northwest pilots gave the public fair warning.
I wish we could learn how to engage in labor activism with a conscience, meaning without inflicting undue harm on the public. I address this wish to all labor unions, but with special mention to the Airline Pilots' Association of the Philippines or ALPAP.
The demands of the 6,100 strong Northwest pilots' union boil down to more pay. Job security is also a major issue.
Northwest ranks only sixth among US airlines in terms of passenger volume but number six here is big, and I mean BIG. We're talking about the cancellation of at least 1,700 daily domestic flights, not to mention international routes, including Manila.
Needless to say, our flight to Honolulu was canceled.
Our travel agent did his best to book us in another airline — any airline — but in vain. We could not get confirmed seats.
Some fast buck operators went around selling seats in chartered flights but the price was beyond our means.
The only chance we had was to go to the airport, get waitlisted, and cross our fingers that we get a seat. Fat chance!  A passenger traveling alone has less than slim chances of landing a seat to any domestic destination, much less a prime destination like Hawaii. What more four passengers traveling together? Los Angeles has been wilting under a heat wave, its worst in memory. The past weeks, the temperatures have been soaring above 100 degrees. The way passengers are scrambling for seats on Hawaii-bound flights, it seems that here in LA, everybody and his auntie and uncle wants to escape to Honolulu, Waikiki, Big Island. Aloha!
To cut a long story short, we did not make it to the funeral. Of all the... I travel halfway round the globe to be with my Mamang Sioning in her hour of grief but I was foiled by an airline strike.
I'm sure Papang Mac will understand.
Sleep well Papang. You've more than earned it.
Honolulu datelines. The trip to Honolulu got me excited.
I went there a number of times when the Marcoses were still living at Makiki Heights and even when the late Apo was already in the hospital Papang Mac used to drive me around.
The last time I was them was a part of the delegation that brought the Marcos remains home. No, this Ilokano ain't a loyalist — I was a working newspaperman. I confess, though, that I was almost carried away by the passion of my fellow Ilokanos.
I planned to do some work after we lay our dead to rest.
The Marcos issue remains hot. I wonder how the loyalists' loyalist, the flamboyant Joe Lazo, a class of his own in Hawaii's Ilokano community with his flashy cars (last time I saw him, his big car was a Rolls Royce while his small car was a Jaguar), his colorful wardrobe (he makes Brother Mike Velarde look like a conservative dresser) and his drop dead jewelry (I noted in writing when I last saw him — Gosh, how he (Joe Lazo) glitters. His trademark is a big gold chain serving as an excuse for a necklace, which he wears like lei. If the necklace is a chain, it's because the pendant it holds weighs a ton. Hey, if the Apo really found the Yamashita treasure. I suspect that he bequeathed the loot to Joe Lazo).
That's Joe Lazo for you. I planned to see him to get a mouthful on the political comeback of the Marcoses and the continuing search for the Marcos loot. And how about the Brothers Ver? My Hawayano friends and relatives would know where I can find them if they're still in Hawaii. An interview with the Ver boys would be most relevant in the face of the raging controversy on the planned return to the Philippines of their father, the once-dreaded Fabian Ver.
But enough of Honolulu datelines. I didn't make it to Honolulu. Damn Northwest strike.@