The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines sacked 11 of its personnel assigned at the Kalibo International Airport for their alleged role in a scam involving terminal fee tickets.
CAAP Director-General William K. Hotchkiss lll directed his deputy Rodante S. Joya and concurrent head of CAAP’s Security and Intelligence Service to look into the possibility that the group has been involved in the modus operandi of “recycling” terminal fee tickets.
The scam could have been going on for several months or possibly years now, taking away possibly substantial amount of earnings from the KIA, Hotchkiss said.
The KIA terminal fee for domestic flight costs P200 and for international travel, P750.
CAAP Deputy Director- General for Administration Maj. Gen. Artemio Orozco terminated the contracts of the 11 job order personnel.
A CAAP regular employee, who is also suspected of involvement in the scam, has been suspended pending investigation by the CSIS.
“A show cause order has been issued to the regular employee who works as a terminal fee collector at the airport,” Orozco said.
According to Orozco, the CSIS has found proof that former members of the group, removed from the agency, were involved in the scam in January and February this year. He said that the CSIS is probing deeper to determine how long the modus operandi has been going on at the KIA.
“We cannot yet say how much of the KIA’s earnings this group have been lost through the scam of basically recycling terminal fee tickets. The CSIS has yet to conclude its investigation,” the CAAP official pointed out.
The memorandum terminating the contracts of personal services of job order (JO)/casual personnel were issued to terminal fee inspectors Daniva Acosta and Shane Alejandro; terminal fee collectors Shiela Oirada, Cherry Peralta, Jojean Conanan, Precious Fernandez, Gerry Revister, Maria Briones, Andy Mel Jones Concepcion, and Jovert Alejandro and Flight Data Encoder, Shamar Glenn Mabasa.
The CSIS investigation showed their involvement in the “collection of CAAP terminal fees for personal gain through the willful and unauthorized issuance of used CAAP terminal fee tickets at the KIA.”
The casual workers were directed to surrender their CAAP identification cards and submit certificates of clearance pertaining to their property and financial responsibility.