When private sector corrupts

When private sector corrupts | Daily Tribune

To obliquely paraphrase one famous quote, this essay contends that, viz., “When the private sector corrupts, it does so absolutely.” In some distant past, no less than a University of the Philippines dean in one academic summit pointed this out: “It’s the private sector that is corrupting the public sector.”

Behind all the promises of the “public-private partnership” as a key funding modality in our “fiscally-constrained environment,” we are now confronted with the overarching profit motive of the concessionaire to whom the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) rehabilitation project was contracted.

It mindlessly obliterates our “willingness to pay” for “goods and services” yet to be delivered at some future time. What’s so disconcerting is that the fees and charges the consortium plans to collect are deemed rapacious, incompatible with public management ethos, and they sweep aside Manila International Airport Authority’s (MIAA) Revised Administrative Order 01, series of 2024.

This PPP of the San Miguel Corporation led-consortium is of the nature of the “operation and maintenance” of the NAIA as a world-class gateway, at a cost of P170 billion within a 15-year time frame that guarantees an airport of high global standards. The problem is that no ordinary individual can lay his hands on it and read through the concession agreement, to see if it were, at all, done right.

There’s no full public disclosure to serve the ends of transparency, accountability, more so the rights of consumers and end-users. While there’s supposed to be a MIAA to balance “incongruent objectives,” namely, the profit motive of the project proponent and the public welfare of the state regulator, the truth is the latter has “gone native” (a euphemism for regulatory capture).

Of late, the New NAIA Infra Corp. (NNIC) is implementing the higher parking rates and its VIP services package (i.e., priority check-in and boarding, meet and greet, access to the lounge) at a price ten times the old rate. The rationale behind the VIP rate increase from P800 to P8,000 is to make it less accessible and restrictive so it can truly cater only to “dignitaries, international performers, and other high-profile passengers.”

As it turns out, it has become a simple luxury of the moneyed class in our cultural divide. Some law enforcers are worried about the incalculable risks this VIP treatment might engender since it bypasses normal procedures and protocols for the “most favored patrons” of the airlines.

With regard to the jacked-up parking rates, the idea is to “discourage the use of parking spaces by non-passengers,” especially those who park overnight or who own business establishments near or around the airport. In fact, the term used by the corporate spokesperson is “de-marketing,” which means that by jacking up rates, this will discourage end-users from using their parking spaces.

However, as reported, there were cars and other vehicles parked at the airport that were there as far back as 2014. Why didn’t the concessionaire first make a thorough and fine-tooth check of all NAIA’s parking spaces before announcing its increase in parking fees?

Without much choice, those who need to park would be “willing to pay” even the increased parking rates, hence it defeats the plan of “demarketing” and presumably reduces it as merely the corporate alibi of a rapaciously profiteering concessionaire at the NAIA complex. It should have been factored into the rehabilitation “work plan” to build new parking spaces in relation to the much-avowed promise to double flight and passenger volumes and improve amenities for airline passengers.

Isn’t it logical that if passenger volumes are increased, the number of cars and other vehicles will also increase thereby requiring more and more parking spaces? If the consortium’s financial viability to absorb all the risks attendant to this PPP rests on shaky ground, then what hope is it selling?

Operationalized prematurely, AO No. 01 forebodes a negative impact inimical to flight passengers. Why not showcase a “corporate social responsibility?”