Piatco sees no settlement in NAIA 3 row

The dispute between the Philippine International Air Terminals Corp. (Piatco) and the government over the operation of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 (NAIA-3) seems headed for a stalemate.

The government has reportedly ignored attempts of Piatco to arrive at an amicable settlement, despite a Dec. 10 ruling by the Supreme Court (SC) ordering the two parties to resolve the long-drawn conflict.

Piatco lawyers from Chavez, Laureta and Associates law office said they have already complied with the instructions of Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. to sit down and discuss the issue.

Former solicitor general Francisco Chavez, a collaborating lawyer in the case, said the two letters they sent to the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) and Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA), dated Dec. 16 and 26, respectively, were not answered.

"To this date, neither DOTC nor MIAA has acted on Piatco’s requests for an amicable dispute resolution," the 108-page Piatco memorandum to the tribunal stated, referring to its request to "negotiate and appoint an expert neutral evaluator to resolve the dispute."

Piatco was awarded the contract to build and operate NAIA-3 in 1997. Now almost completed at a cost of $525 million, the new state-of-the-art passenger terminal was not opened to the public as scheduled last Dec. 15 following a string of controversies leading to the Senate’s decision to nullify Piatco’s contract with the government, which it had found tainted with anomalies.

The SC, in ordering the parties to settle the issues amicably, said they should consider the public interest in settling their row.

Once fully operational, the ultra-modern airport terminal can handle 13 million passengers annually and is expected to generate 30,000 jobs.

Chavez earlier said that they will opt for mediation in settling the dispute, but will move to arbitration should it fail. This means filing a complaint before a foreign tribunal where a panel of three will investigate the merits of the suit.

"Should negotiation and the assistance of a neutral evaluator fail, Piatco intends to invoke the arbitration clause to submit the dispute to arbitration," Piatco stated, adding that it is convinced the government is bent on taking over the world-class airport facility.

MIAA, Piatco added, has in fact "accredited surreptitiously" a service operator even after the SC order to settle the issue first in their level.

It was done, according to Piatco, without any sanction from the high tribunal and is necessarily a "clear violation of Piatco’s right to appoint service providers in NAIA-3."

"Evidently, this act of MIAA is already a first overt step toward a government takeover," the lawyers said in the pleading. MIAA has unilaterally declared that Piatco’s contract with the government is void.

According to Chavez, this would inflict "irreparable injury" to Piatco’s foreign partners like Germans, Singaporeans and Japanese and will consequently send wrong signals to foreign investors who may want to give the country a try.

"To say the least, the government will again fail to impress the entire world that the Philippines can be at par with the rest of its Asian neighbors. The country will again be the laughingstock of the international community," he said.