MCIA contractor tells staff: You’re secured

Nigel Paul Villarete, (right) general manager of the Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority, welcomes Andrew Acquaah-Harrison (left) Deputy CEO of GMR and Louie Ferrer (second from left) Chief Marketing officer of Megawide Construction Corp. (CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA)

Officials of GMR Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC) attended yesterday’s flag-raising ceremony at the Mactan Cebu International Airport to introduce themselves to the employees and assure them that they will be taken care of.

“We will be experiencing some changes in the process and we ask for you to be patient. We can get through this together,” GMCAC president Louie Ferrer told the airport employees at the MCIAA basketball court.

MCIA general manager Paul Villarete said GMCAC’s takeover of terminal operations in October won’t result in “the displacement, dismissal and replacement of any MCIA staffer unless they choose to.”

“Not any one of you will lose your job except if you want it. If you want to transfer, that’s your right, but if you want to stay you are very welcome to stay,” Villarete said.

No foreign experts

Ferrer and chief executive advisor Andrew Acquaah-Harrison both assured the employees they will work hand-in-hand with the Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) during the transition.

Villarete said under the new structure, the MCIAA will have 549 positions out of the existing 580, taking out 31 positions which are mostly occupied by those retiring from government service.
Villarete said it’s the MCIAA that will decide to renew the contracts of over 50 casual employees every six months. Harrison said they won’t hire foreign experts.

“It will be more expensive for us. We will only need to do that when we don’t have talents here. The Philippines is full of talented people,” Harrison said.

He said they want to retain experts across all critical operations.

Dialogue

Dr. Rebecca L. Pepito, senior credit officer and the president of the MCIAA Employees Association (MEMA) said they were initially worried about their jobs when they read stories from newspapers that they will lose their jobs.

“We had a dialogue with the management already though and they assured us that no one will lose their job. He said that the story that came out in Cebu Daily News is the correct story,” Pepito said.

Pepito said while everyone is assured of a job under the new structure, they still don’t know what position they will be assigned to.

Aside from the employees, the new management said they will honor existing contracts including the new commercial strip called District 32 which will expire in 2016.

“We will honor all existing contracts including the advertisers, lounges. We are here to add to the airport not take things from it. We want an efficient airport and we will need facilities from dining, retail and even washrooms,” Harrison said.

New base

“We were told about it and we were also told that we’ll continue to operate here,” said Raymar Dime, who mans the Islands Souvenirs shop.

Voyager Cebu’s Genalyn Lucay said most of their buyers purchase souvenir items from their shops.

“Most of them like to shop here because the prices are comparable to those they find in malls,” she said.

Aside from a new terminal, an P800 million project that will serve as a new base of the Philippine Air Force is being bidded out by MCIAA.

Villarete said the area occupied by the Air Force is part of the 5.3 hectares project land which the government offered under a Public-Private Partnership Project to GMR-Megawide Consortium.