Price gouging
Travel service platform Air Asia Move faces a serious predicament beyond a shutdown as the company and its parent, Capital A Berhad, owned by Malaysian tycoon Tony Fernandes’ group, may be liable for economic sabotage under the Price Control and Anti-Profiteering Act.
Economic sabotage is a non-bailable offense, reflecting the seriousness with which the law views large-scale price manipulation and profiteering that can harm the economy and the public interest.
Under the Price Act or Republic Act 7581, price gouging or profiteering is an illegal act of price manipulation. Turn to page 11
Price gouging is defined as selling or offering for sale any basic necessity or prime commodity at a price grossly exceeding its actual worth.
The crime is committed when the price of an essential or prime commodity is raised by more than 10 percent of its price in the immediately preceding month.
Last Monday, Transportation Secretary Vince Dizon ordered the shutdown of AirAsia Move for charging exorbitant ticket prices that appeared to have taken advantage of the transportation crisis in Eastern Visayas.
Local officials and the Office of Civil Defense brought to Dizon’s attention the irregularity involving the regional travel platform.
“There is a crisis there because the movement of goods and people was affected by the partial closure of the San Juanico Bridge to heavy vehicles, buses, and trucks. They are taking advantage of the situation,” Dizon noted.
The DoTr, the Civil Aeronautics Board, and the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines have been tasked with investigating the increase in passenger and air cargo fares in Eastern Visayas, particularly on routes to Tacloban, Catarman, and Ormoc City.
“Any immediate intervention to control the purported air fare and cargo fare increases would truly help diffuse the frustration of our fellow Filipinos in Region VIII and stabilize the local market and economic conditions,” Office of Civil Defense Administrator Ariel Nepomuceno told Dizon.
On 26 May, a cease and desist order was issued by the DoTr to AirAsia Move for allegedly engaging in the “unauthorized sale of airline tickets for carriers in the Philippines at prices exceeding the approved fare structures established by the CAB.”
AirAsia Move said it was ready to comply with the cease and desist order. It argued that it was not under the CAB’s jurisdiction, being a foreign-based online travel agent.