Saturday, September 19, 1998
OPINION
Political Tidbits
By Belinda Olivares-Cunanan
THE SUN is about to set on Asia's sunniest airline. The management of Philippine Airlines stunned the nation the other day by announcing that it's closing the ailing national carrier for good next Wednesday, Sept. 23. PAL has been an institution in this country for 57 years, and is part and parcel of its history as well as that of the region, being Asia's first airline. At least two generations of Filipinos grew up with PAL. Over the years, the national carrier has been the butt of jokes in this country about its oftentimes lousy service and its reputation for being "Plane Always Late." But still we all felt it was the safest airline to take to our various islands, something its record justifies. It's hard to believe that PAL is finally riding out into the sunset.
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A citizen interviewed by ABS-CBN the other night put it quite succinctly: PAL's affair is a matter of national pride. For this columnist, it certainly is. Over the last three and a half years that my husband has been posted in Cambodia, we have had a chance to visit various countries in the Asian mainland and try other airlines. I note that even little Laos, with its three or four million people, has a national airline, Lao Aviation. Cambodia, destroyed by the Khmer Rouge in the late '70s and now torn apart by bitter conflict among its leaders, proudly flies its own Royal Air Cambodge, which we Pinoys take to and from Bangkok from Phnom Penh. Even Vietnam, just rising from the ashes of decades of civil war, also has its own Vietnam Airlines, which Pinoys in Cambodia take as an alternative route to Phnom Penh via Ho Chi Minh City. Riding in those little airlines can be a nerve-wracking experience because they still use small old Russian-made planes and it's not uncommon to see threadbare tires. But they're flying and slowly modernizing.
Sadly, the Philippines, a proud country of over 70 million which likes to portray itself as Asia's newest tiger until the Asian crisis struck, couldn't even run a national airline.
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Over the years, I've taken PAL around the country, the Asian mainland and to Europe and the US. In fact, former President Ramos, during his state visit to Phnom Penh in December 1995, kidded me that because of my shuttling between Phnom Penh and Manila every so many weeks. I was "the only one keeping PAL afloat." My life as part-time expatriate in Phnom Penh proved to be very expensive for me- as I paid PAL every cent for it. But I was happy to patronize our national carrier and I had no serious complaints. I don't know taipan Lucio Tan, but when he took over PAL I hoped he could turn it around, and indeed I could see the improvements. He launched an ambitious renewing program that would have made PAL the youngest airline this year. From "Plane Always Late" it became only sometimes late. In-flight service improved as the attendants began to exhibit more professionalism. I came to know many dedicated PAL managers, such as Ho Chi Minh-based Ging Luciano-Ledesma. Like many other Filipinos, I hoped that in a few years PAL could give the famed airlines of Southeast Asia—Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways and Malaysian Airways—a run for their money. But unfortunately it was not meant to be.
PAL's story perhaps reflects the Philippine situation: a country of brilliant people with all the management degrees to boot, but who cannot rise above their petty problems, their greed and self-interest, to run a country or an organization efficiently and professionally.
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As this column was being written, President Estrada was frantically trying to mediate between PAL management and the union people. He is fully aware that the closure of PAL would mean loss of jobs for thousands of employees (as he correctly pointed out, hindi magugutom si Lucio Tan, but the PAL employees' children would). Closing PAL would gravely affect the riding population (among its regular clientele are the members of Congress who often meet at the pre-departure lounge of the domestic airport every Friday afternoon to go home to their constituencies) who cannot be serviced adequately by our underdeveloped shipping industry. It would also greatly affect foreign and domestic tourism. It remains to be seen what the President can do at this point, but things don't look encouraging. Tan is probably glad to be rid of this huge financial albatross around his neck.
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What's even more fascinating now is the report that PAL could become part of a looming battle of two giants both close to the President. The story is that Danding Cojuangco, who has taken over San Miguel Corp., wants to buy a few of Tan's planes, since he still has a franchise to run an airline. The story says that Danding may pay Tan with SMC shares, which the latter has wanted to get, and that in fact Tan had already paid a down payment on Cojuangco's 20-percent stake in SMC, but the latter has reportedly hedged on giving them up lately. Perhaps the time has come to swap SMC shares with Tan's planes. Tan would want to get into SMC in order to corner the beer market (his Asia Brewery is said to have cut into SMC's beer market considerably).
But there's a further twist. Danding is said to be nursing some tampo with Mr. Estrada. inasmuch as the Zamora brothers, who control Security Bank, are said to be eyeing United Coconut Planters' Bank which Danding wants to get back. Tan is now said to be allied with the Zamoras in the battle for UCPB, while Danding has allied himself with his nephew, PLDT's Tony Boy Cojuangco.
Megaproblems indeed for Mr. Estrada, who may be caught in the power play between titans with close links to him.
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