Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto yesterday said the government should arrest the leaders and smash the syndicate of Naia personnel involved in stealing from the bags of passengers.
Recto made the call following the arrest of four baggage handlers for allegedly stealing the jewelry of the wife of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.
If authorities had only done that a long time ago, he said the country would have been spared of this embarrassing incident.
“It took a foreign VIP to lodge a complaint before authorities finally took action against a continuing crime routinely posted by its victims, our OFWs, in social media,” Recto said.
Recto urged the National Bureau of Investigation “and other non-Naia based agencies” to conduct the probe and lead the hunt on the perpetrators.
If there is a need to use intelligence fund, he said it will be good money worth spending.
“When you steal from OFWs, they who are returning from long and low-paying hard labor abroad, then you are an enemy of the state,” Recto said.
Recto said taxpayer-paid PR drives to lure in more tourists are negated by the bad press the country’s main gateway is getting.
“’That Maleta Gang in Naia, its negative effect on tourism is similar to the damage done by Maute Group,” Recto said.
“One of the worst airports na nga in terms of passenger facilities and traffic congestion, tapos enveloped pa in other controversies,” he added.
He said “a serious airport cleanup drive” should include all other major airports. He said money should not be a problem in transforming NAIA’s image as an “honest institution,” and overcome a bad reputation inflicted by “a few bad eggs working there.”
“In 2014, government was already collecting P9.3 billion from NAIA passengers and airlines, netting P5.25 billion that year,” Recto said.
Recto said a third of NAIA’s P9.3 billion gross income came from the P550 international terminal fee and the P200 domestic terminal fee paid by passengers, which reached P3.5 billion in 2014.
Travel tax rates range from P2,700 for a first class passenger; to P1,620 for an economy seat; and P300 for an OFW dependent.
“You are paying airport security fee, and then your things are not secured. So what’s the use of paying for your security and the secuiety of your things,” added Recto.
In 2014, P598 million in Airport Security Fees was collected from NAIA users. The whole amount was remitted by the Office of Transportation Security, a DOTC agency, to the Treasury, according to official reports.