Gemma Sadiua (3rd from left), Miascor Ground Handling Corp. president, leads officials of the firm in questioning the cancellation of their Letter of Award to handle ground services at the Mactan Cebu International Airport in a press briefing at the Quest Hotel on Thursday. CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON
GMCAC cancels ground handling service provider’s letter of award; Miascor appeals action
Employment of around 600 employees of aviation service provider Miascor is now in limbo after the private operator of the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA) decided not to push through with hiring the firm starting May this year.
Miascor, which is currently responsible for 70 percent of the ground handling services at the MCIA, is questioning the “unlawful and unilateral” cancellation of their Letter of Award by the GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC).
In a press conference at Quest Hotel yesterday afternoon, Miascor officials said they were surprised with the cancellation, which was relayed to them by GMCAC through a letter last Feb. 19, especially since there was already a “meeting of the minds” and that they have been complying with the requirements.
This included investing P400 million in acquiring new equipment as required by GMCAC in their bidding terms.
“We call on GMCAC to honor their contractual obligation and immediately grant Miascor the license to develop, operate, and maintain ground handling facilities, as well provide ground handling services, at MCIA,” said Miascor Ground Handling Corp. President Gemma Sadiua.
No contract
But in a statement yesterday, GMCAC clarified that there is still no current binding contract between them and Miascor.
They said Miascor’s contract for ground handling already expired last Oct. 31, 2015.
This was between Miascor and the MCIA Authority which was then the manager of the airport.
They acknowledged though that there is another contract “being negotiated” between Miascor and GMCAC.
In order to have a new seven-year contract for the ground handling services starting June 2018, Miascor and three other independent ground handling companies were issued letters of award last Jan. 12.
They explained though that this letter of award was not a valid contract and was just part of the preparatory stage to entering a contract.
However, GMCAC said they decided to cancel the letter of award for Miascor on two grounds — the first was a February 15 directive sent to GMCAC by MCIAA on behalf of the Philippine government, prohibiting the awarding of ground handling contracts to Miascor in line with issues of baggage pilferage incidents at the Clark International Airport and Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).
To recall, last January, President Duterte publicly ordered for the cancellation of ground handling contracts of Miascor in all airports in the country where they are contractors due to an incident where an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) lost around P84,000 worth of items from his baggage and balikbayan box at the Clark Airport.
The second ground for termination cited by GMCAC was that the terms of the bid requires bidders to disclose any “material information” relating to their performance which the GMCAC should be aware of.
“Miascor failed to disclose to GMCAC the 18 out of 26 alleged pilferage incidents in NAIA, a material information that is critical in assessing Miascor’s capacity to perform their obligations,” GMCAC said adding that the bidding terms reserve rights for them to accept or reject proposals before the actual signing of the license agreement.
Appeal
Sought for comment about the pilferage incident, Miascor explained that they have already sent a letter of appeal to President Duterte himself asking for reconsideration on his decision to cancel all of Miascor’s contracts in five airports in the country.
Aside from NAIA, Clark and Cebu, which is their second biggest operation area, Miascor is also doing ground handling services for airports in Kalibo and Davao.
Sadiua said they received a response from the President’s office last March 7 informing them that the issue has been endorsed to Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade who is supposed to be evaluating their performance following the incident, and later on give a report and recommendations to the President.
“The punishment is not commensurate to the infraction done which was only petty theft. It was not even syndicated theft,” she said.
Miascor currently has around 4,000 employees at the five airports where they are operating. Of the number, 600 are at the MCIA.
Miascor started operating at the MCIA in 1991. They are currently the ground handling service provider of 70 percent of the flights in the MCIA.
This is equivalent to 16 out of the 22 airlines currently in the MCIA including Jin Air, Cathay Pacific, Jeju Air, Silk Air, Asiana Airlines, Air Busan, Cebu Pacific, Vanilla Air and some Chinese airlines among others.
Ground handling means Miascor provides employees starting from the staff wearing airline uniforms that are manning the check-in counters, to the personnel loading and unloading baggage to and from the airplanes, fueling it, and cleaning it among others.
In Manila, they were already operating as early as 1974.
Deadline, options
Lawyer Earl Versoza, Miascor’s general manager for Visayas and Mindanao, assured though that pending their concern with GMCAC, it will still be business as usual for them at the MCIA.
They have been given until midnight of May 24, 2018 to vacate all the spaces they are occupying at the MCIA.
Meanwhile, GMCAC has also informed all airlines operating at the MCIA to start looking for other ground handling service providers in preparation for the exit of Miascor.
In the meantime, Miascor said they are “looking into a lot of options” to address the situation, one of which is to make the appeal to GMCAC in public through yesterday’s press conference.
Filing a case in court is also an option, they said.
Sadiua said though that when their deadline arrives and they are still not granted any reprieve, they will peacefully vacate and stop operations at MCIA.
“As to the employees, it is also a question mark for us. But we will provide them with the mandatory benefits like separation pay. Definitely, we will give them what is mandated under government law,” she said.