Costly band-aid solution

Airline companies, principally PAL, Cebu-Pacific and other domestic carriers are backing a 100 billion peso proposal by a consortium to “upgrade” the NAIA complex of four decrepit terminals, supposedly to increase the flight capacity of our international gateway which likewise serves the huge volume of domestic travel.

While no one in his right mind will swear by the good state of our NAIA complex, which incidentally has always ranked among the world’s worst airports, upgrading at this time is a costly band-aid solution that will not really increase airport capacity.

Sure, terminal convenience might come about with an upgrade and in the words of PAL’s spokesperson, my friend Cielo Villaluna, “enhance overall customer experience,” but insofar as increasing airport capacity, the costly private consortium’s proposal will be good money thrown into a bad situation.

There is only one runway usable by international airlines, and that competes with the landing and take-off of big domestic airplanes as well. The other runway, shorter and perpendicular to the main runway is usable only by smaller aircraft.

Worse, because of poor planning, there is no space in the 640-hectare airport complex for a second runway, which is what we need to increase capacity.

When this writer headed NFA, which had title to the 120-hectare Food Terminal (FTI) complex in Taguig, across the NAIA, a proposal was sent to my office about residents of neighboring NAIA residential villages like Multinational and Merville being relocated in the FTI area, in exchange for their subdivisions giving way to another runway for our airport.

For my part, I was thinking of reviving the FTI into what FM Sr. and NFA’s Jess Tanchanco originally intended it to be, a huge “bagsakan” complex with cold chain and other warehousing facilities for agricultural produce.

After 1986, FTI went into a continuing decline, its cold storage and other facilities going to pot.

However, to cut a long story short, Pres. PNoy and DOF Sec. Purisima made a decision in 2011 to privatize the FTI, a policy originally started during PGMA’s term.

I conferred with ES Jojo Ochoa regarding the terms of the bidding procedures to ensure that many real estate players would participate and the saleable area reduced to 70 hectares instead of the entire property, as there were unexpired leases to PEZA-licensed locators.

In the end, two-thirds of FTI was sold to Ayala, at a price three times higher than the thrice bid-out sale price during the previous administration.

Looking back at the situation we find our NAIA complex unable to handle the daily traffic of airline arrivals and departures, and with its facilities continuously breaking down, the most horrific being the January 1 experience, and the lesser being the May 1 Terminal 3 black-out, I wonder if the proposal to build another runway in the neighboring villages could have been a solution.

Be that as it may, Ramon Ang is now building a new aerotropolis in Bulakan, Bulacan, and promises us there will be two runways usable before PFM Jr. ends his term, using no public money and no sovereign guarantee.

Cavite Gov. Johnvic Remulla has lined up foreign partners for another airport complex in what used to be an American base, Sangley, beside Cavite City which shares the same air corridor as the NAIA four-terminal complex.

And there is also Clark, another foreign base which has been converted into an ecozone, on which PRRD built a new spanking terminal operated by a private consortium.

A rail system connecting Manila to Clark is in the works, and a second runway will soon be built.

So what use is there for an expensive band-aid solution, to upgrade four terminals that will soon be rendered obsolete by so many other airport projects?

Fortunately, DoTr’s Jimmy Bautista is being cautious, and while creating a TWG to evaluate the consortium’s proposal, stated “we have to review carefully and we should take our time”.

His predecessors, Mar Roxas and Art Tugade have upgraded regional airports, with radar and night-landing facilities, and these have allowed more flexible schedules for domestic airlines such that traffic in the NAIA complex has eased compared to the horrible 2008-2014 years when taxiing and falling in line for take-off could reach an hour, while international carriers had to fly around Metro Manila for as long as half an hour before being allowed to land.

***

Still on the DoTr front, there is a dearth of plastic cards for driver’s licenses such that the LTO has asked its constituent public to make do with temporary paper licenses.

Maybe the transition between one administration and another has contributed to the problem, and while the DoTr has blamed the LTO for not submitting the procedural requirements for bidding, such as the terms of reference, the LTO has justifiable reasons for the failure to provide the plastic licenses.

First off, the transition: Jay-Art Tugade got his LTO appointment late last year, after having been first appointed to the NAIA, and when Bautista protested as he had designated Glenn Chiong to the post, he was shunted off to LTO a month or so after.

The earlier appointed LTO chief was subsequently transferred to the LTFRB.

Why this merry-go-round came about is a puzzlement if one did not know the inside story or the personal conflicts behind it.

Then, DoTr announced early this year that all procurement and other deals worth 50 million and up must pass scrutiny by the department, and agencies under it needed to comply.

So newly-shuffled Tugade had to pass the procurement to DoTr.

DoTr is one of those departments that need to be rationalized, as huge as it is.

Under former president FM Sr., DoTC was not a line department, only a supervisory one guiding policies of the different bureaus under it, such as the LTO, NAIA, Bureau of Posts, Bureau of Telecommunications, ATO (now CAAP), PNR, LRT, etc.

Under Pres. Cory, the DoTC was transformed into a line department, with the bureaus becoming mere offices, and the bureau chiefs becoming assistant secretaries of the department.

This created similar problems to what Tugade and Bautista are now having insofar as purchasing and operations are concerned.

Later, Congress created the DICT, removing communications from the department which was saddled with multi-faceted responsibilities.

Thus, under PNoy, the DICT was established with current secretary Ivan Uy initially appointed.

DoTr was first helmed by the highly respected Ping de Jesus, who was his mother Cory’s efficient DPWH secretary, later replaced by Mar Roxas, who in the second half of PNoy’s government became DILG chief.

The current DoTr has undersecretaries for air, rail, and land, aside from the usual finance and administration, whose functions are ill-defined, subject to the policy of whoever is the secretary.

This sometimes creates gridlock.

These problems happen in other departments and line agencies, which is why properly rightsizing the bureaucracy, which PFM Jr. announced in his SONA last year, is urgently needed.

I wonder if Congress and the executive departments are coordinating their actions on the president’s SONA guideline.