CAAP workers' union mulls air control tower walkout

MANILA, Philippines - An official of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines-Employees Union (CAAP-EU) said yesterday some of their members are contemplating a walkout to protest CAAP director general Ruben Ciron’s management of the aviation body.

“There are air traffic controllers who are considering the staging of protest actions such as air control tower walkouts,” said CAAP-EU vice president Cesar Lucero.

Lucero said air traffic controllers are counting on the implementation of Republic Act 9497, which created the CAAP, to raise their salaries to international standards.

Many air traffic controllers under the Air Transportation Office (ATO), the forerunner of the CAAP, took jobs in other countries to get higher pay, he said.

The CAAP-EU is questioning Ciron’s appointment of retired military officers with no civil aviation management expertise into the CAAP since the new aviation body was created in 2008. The group said that under RA 9497, the CAAP was supposed to absorb regular ATO employees in order to retain experienced air traffic controllers and other technical employees of the agency.

Ciron earlier denied the CAAP-EU’s allegations.

Lucero also said they will question a recent move by Ciron to file libel charges against him and put him under a 90-day preventive suspension.

Ciron said he was compelled to file charges against Lucero for calling him “incompetent and incapable, who always rely on his allegedly knowledgeable and expert consultant.”

Ciron said Lucero has claimed that scores of navigational aids in the country’s airports are defective, though he is not a technical employee. Ciron said Lucero is in no position to vouch for the state of the navigational aids since he is only a special investigator at the CAAP’s legal division.

Lucero said his recent expose on the the lack of calibration of the navigational aids (navaids) and facilities in the different airports in the country was not a result of his work alone but by information-gathering work by the CAAP-EU.

“It seems that Ciron thinks that by suspending me, he can stop all these negative information coming out of the CAAP,” Lucero said.

Lucero said more navigational aids will need quarterly calibration this month.