Monday, September 21, 1998
By Carla P. Gomez
PDI Visayas Bureau
BACOLOD CITY—Lucio Tan, chair and majority owner of Philippine Airlines, is willing to allow the government to take over the ailing flag carrier.
"It's all right. Whoever likes to take over is welcome," Tan said here on Saturday.
He confirmed a statement of Sen. John Osmeña that he was prepared to turn over PAL to the government for free as long as it would assume the airline's debts.
Both Tan and Osmeña were in Bacolod on Saturday for separate speaking engagements.
Today, the senator was scheduled to meet with President Estrada to push for a government takeover of PAL to prevent it from closing down on Sept. 23.
Osmeña, Chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, said he would help look for funds needed to revive the heavily indebted airline.
"Never have we been without PAL in the last 50 years. Philippine Airlines is crucial to our economy. The Visayas and Mindanao cannot survive without it," he told the
INQUIRER.
Osmeña said he sat beside Tan on the plane to Bacolod and discussed the state of the country's flag carrier.
"Tan was telling me he has to close because he cannot handle the debt of the airline," he said.
PAL, which owes a total of P94 billion, must shell out P9 billion in amortization a year but would only earn P3.5 billion under its Plan 22, according to Tan.
Osmeña said paying pilots P270,000 a month for 30 hours of flying time was one of the problems faced by Asia's oldest airline.
He added that he was told by Tan that PAL was losing P40 million a day.
For PAL to survive, the senator said the airline must increase its fares.
Consortium
But Rep. Allen Quimpo (LAMP, Aklan) said PAL would not close shop as there was a consortium of businessmen set to buy Tan's 57-percent stake in PAL.
Quimpo also cited reports that business tycoon Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco was interested in buying Tan's shares in PAL.
But Cojuangco flatly denied the rumor. He said he was not buying PAL and other companies such as Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. and Manila Electric Co.
"They seem to know better than me," he said of the reports that he was buying into these firms.
Osmeña also believed that rumors about the Cojuangco takeover of PAL were false. "Why would he want to assume something that would cause him a headache?" he said.
Neutral
In Malacañang, Mr. Estrada yesterday vowed not to take sides in the labor dispute between the management and labor unions of PAL.
"I do not favor any side," the President said in a statement.
But the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino said Mr. Estrada was siding with Tan.
The President was earlier quoted as saying "What's a CBA for if the company has closed down?" He also told the Philippine Airlines Employees' Association (Palea), "Can you eat your CBA?"
Filemon Lagman, BMP chair. said the President did not seem to understand the issues in PAL.
"Mr. President, eat the carcass of PAL. Workers conscious of their rights will rather die of hunger for their principles than work as slaves for the likes of Lucio Tan," he said.
"And yet, Mr. President, workers eat their CBAs. Job security, wage increases and basic benefits are not the products of the benevolence of capital but of the hard-won right of labor to collective bargaining and trade unionism," Lagman said in a statement.
PAL management had announced it would close down the airline at midnight of Sept. 23 after it failed to come up with an acceptable labor deal with officers and board members of Palea.
Not giving up
Press Undersecretary Icasiano Gutierrez said Mr. Estrada "is not giving up" on saving the national flag carrier and added that the President "is exhausting all efforts to arrive at a middle ground."
The President was supposed to meet with representatives of PAL and Palea Friday night but bad weather apparently prevented both parties from arriving in Malacañang to discuss the dispute with him.
But Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora hinted that talks between union and management had collapsed after the union's legal consultants had indicated that they would rather discuss an entirely new collective bargaining agreement.
Management stood by its offer of 20-percent ownership to employees, shares of stock worth P300,000 each and three seats in the board of directors in exchange for a 10-year suspension of the CBA.
In the wake of impending closure of PAL, Malacañang ordered the Department of Trade and Industry to broker "social accords" between labor and management of various industries.
In a statement, the Palace said the labor department was now consulting the Employers Confederation of the Philippines and labor unions about drafting agreements "designed to promote management-labor harmony and stem the rise in the number of the unemployed."
Trade Secretary Jose Pardo said the signing of industrial peace pacts would be made at the company level.
Pardo is co-chair of the Economic Mobilization Group which the President formed to come up with measures that will help the country survive the Asian crisis.
He said the industrial peace accords were part of the package of measures the administration wanted to adopt to stimulate economic growth. With reports from Cathy Cañares in Manila and Odon S. Bandiola, PDI Visayas Bureau
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