Who’s the enemy now?

Some people are questioning the recent actuations of the chairman of the Airline Operator’s Council (AOC) Leoncio Nakpil.

The AOC is an organization representing the 32 international airlines operating in the Philippines. Lately, Nakpil has been coming out in the media lambasting the management of the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) for implementing heightened security measures at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminals 1 and 2.

While everyone is crying out (begging even) for more security enhancement measures in government facilities and other populous places, the chairman of the AOC is complaining about it.

Nakpil is particularly peeved with the way airline employees are subjected to the same rigorous security check which passengers are subjected to. Maybe, Nakpil thinks that only passengers are security threats and that there is no way that anyone from their ranks can pose as a threat to lives and property in our international airports.

Of late he has even gone personal claiming that the MIAA management only implements these heightened security measures whenever an audit by the US Transportation Security Administration is about to be undertaken.

Well, for the information of Nakpil, those who regularly pass through the airports actually do not mind being subjected to the rigorous security checks. In fact, they greatly appreciate the same. His claim that flights have been delayed because of the excessive security checks which airline employees have been subjected to is according to some quarters a lame excuse to project the MIAA management as incompetent. We passengers have adjusted quite well by checking in an hour or two earlier before our ETDs so why can’t the airline personnel also do the same? Anyway, service is their business.

Sources say the actuations of Nakpil are not at all that surprising, as he has been angling for the post of MIAA Assistant General Manager for Security and Emergency Services for quite sometime now. He feels he will have a better shot at it if he can get to discredit the incumbent Assistant GM.

Astute Business Sense Or Not

Victor Chiongbian’s fortunes continue to spiral. Despite having been paid his share by his former partners in the merger of three shipping companies in the mid-nineties, he remains to be in the red (P2 billion in bad debts is no joke). Bad debts and more bad debts which he entered into before the breakup of the shipping merger has left him practically flat broke. Even Fastpak, his freight forwarding outfit, has reportedly been defaulting on payments to its suppliers and delaying the salaries of employees.

Cebu business community stalwarts just cannot understand what happened to this one time shipping great. As if his tales of woes in the shipping merger are not enough, he now is reportedly trying to pull one over Jaime Zobel de Ayala.

Chiongbian, who sits on the board of Cebu Holdings, Inc. (an Ayala company), allegedly started gobbling up huge tracts of land in a northern coastal Cebu town called Tayud. Victor has been telling the few people he calls friends nowadays that the coastal town of Tayud will be the next boom-town of Cebu. He calls it astute business foresight and a keen understanding of Cebu and where future developments in the island province will be. However, as it turns out Cebu Holdings is planning to develop in the very, very near future a very large property it owns in – you got it, Tayud town. There is another term for his actions, insider trading, and we can only imagine what JAZA has to say on this caper of Victor.

It is, likewise, a fact that Victor has invested heavily in the rejuvenated Gothong Lines, Inc. The shipping company which has brought in 30-year-old floating coffins has reflected in its books losses of more than P100 million in its operations last year. Shipping industry sources said that Gothong Lines will continue to use the red marker with the continued increase in the cost of fuel and steel. Again, not a very wise investment for Chiongbian. And as for Gothong, good luck.

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