'No government funds spent on CAAP seminars'

MANILA, Philippines - The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) clarified yesterday that it had not spent a single centavo to conduct “values education” and “purpose-driven life” seminars for its employees.

In a statement, Ruben Ciron, CAAP director general, said that while they have conducted values education seminars at the CAAP central office along MIAA Road in Pasay City and in eight major airports nationwide, they did not spend CAAP funds.

Ciron said the 2,000 employees that have attended the seminars were given free copies of the Bible donated by benefactors and concerned organizations that believe that moral strengthening should be part of the CAAP organizational and managerial capability-building program.

Ciron, a retired Philippine Air Force (PAF) general, said the CAAP was pursuing the values education program in compliance with a directive of President Arroyo to lead moral renewal in their respective institutions.

“What we have started is a continuing values education program pursuant to Administrative Order No. 255 issued by President Arroyo on January 30, 2009 directing the heads of the executive department to lead moral renewal in their agencies,” Ciron said.

Ciron admitted that the CAAP had a P14.81 million plan to conduct a “Spiritual Advancement Values Education (SAVE)” program but the project has not yet been implemented.

Ciron said that they were still in the process of having the P14.81-million program approved by the CAAP board, headed by Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza as chairman that would then release funds for it.

The STAR reported that so-called “organic” CAAP employees have questioned Ciron’s move of allocating a budget of P14,819,080 for the SAVE program, which involves the 3,700 employees of CAAP that would take the 25-hour values education and purpose-driven life seminars that reportedly already started September 2008.

Sources dismissed yesterday the denial of Ciron that the program has not yet been implemented, saying that some of the employees have already attended the seminars that were held in Baguio and Bicol.

The sources earlier said that the values education program with its huge cost was highly questionable as well as unnecessary.

The CAAP employees said the program only used up much of the agency’s funds as well as employees’ time when the agency was supposed to be focusing on the effort for the country to regain its Category I status with the United States’ Federal Aviation Authority (FAA).

The US FAA downgraded the Philippines to a Category II status last December 2007 after the country allegedly failed to comply with international aviation safety and security standards.

The downgrade had galvanized the Philippine government into action, turning the CAAP’s forerunner, the Air Transportation Office (ATO) into an authority that will enable it to have autonomy and retain its revenue collections and provide funds for the training of aircraft check pilots and to satisfy the other requirements of the US FAA.

Previously as the ATO, the agency remits almost all of its revenue collections to the national treasury.

For 2009, the CAAP is expected to collect some P3.3 billion in revenues.