We met Cebu Pacific Air president and CEO Lance Gokongwei at the Mactan Airport and he briefed us on what Cebu Pacific has been doing lately and he was proud to say that Cebu Pacific carried more domestic passengers in 2007. Mind you this data was validated by a report we got from the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) which showed that Cebu Pacific carried some 4.46 million passengers or 43 percent of the total of 10.39 million passengers, while the national flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) carried 4.03 million domestic passengers last year. Meanwhile, Air Philippines, a partner of PAL, carried 1.17 million passengers, while Asian Spirit carried 484,482 passengers. SEAIR had 245,020 passengers in 2007.
According to Mr. Gokongwei, their strategy is simple: “Cebu Pacific aims to be the best high-quality, low-cost carrier in the Philippines and in the region.” Given today’s tough times, that’s not an easy task, especially when airlines are saddled with huge problems. In fact, in the US, the latest news from the airline industry is the coming merger of Northwest Airlines and Delta Air. But then, when I asked Mr. Gokongwei if they were going to have direct flights from Cebu to the US, he bluntly said that this was not in their radar screen as they aim to satisfy their domestic and regional passengers.
Indeed, Cebu Pacific is now the fastest-growing domestic and international airline in the country, offering more than 1,000 flights per week. Mr. Gokongwei proudly pointed out that the tourism growth in the country is directly linked to Cebu Pacific’s being a low-fare leader in the airline industry. They now fly to all ASEAN countries from Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh to Singapore and now they just started their Cebu-Bangkok flights. This is not to mention that they also fly to Hong Kong, Korea, Taipei, Xiamen, Guangzhou and Macau.
Cebu Pacific now operates the youngest fleet in the country with 10 Airbus A319s and five A-320s plus the two ATR 72-100s now serving the Cebu-Caticlan route. Perhaps what I like most about Mr. Gokongwei is his positive attitude especially in these times when we are only seeing gloom and doom scenarios. No doubt, Cebu Pacific is doing something right and maybe, just maybe, it’s because they proudly carry the name of Cebu.
* * *
The article on the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) that we wrote last Monday got a lot of comments from our readers. Here’s an excerpt from Leo Tecson who wrote me a very lengthy letter:
“The communists are the most vociferous promoters of land reform, it is therefore astonishing that several newspapers bannered this headline, ‘26 Catholic Bishops Urge the Government to Extend Land Reform.’ During the Cold War, the Catholic Church and the communists were the bitterest of foes; one time while reviewing his troops, the late Russian dictator Joseph Stalin sarcastically remarked: ‘How many divisions does the Pope have?’ It is therefore surprising that some bishops have aligned themselves with the communists in two areas: land reform and mining.
“The communists are champions of land reform because they know it is a total failure as well as a total waste of government money, which would have been better spent elsewhere. The communists know that land reform will not alleviate poverty and instead will perpetuate it. They are also against mining because it will create a lot of jobs as well as generate tens of billions of taxes for the government. Mining used to be our biggest source of foreign exchange in the last century; it accounted for as much as 20 percent of our export earnings. The purpose of the communists in promoting land reform as well as opposing mining is to keep the people poor so that they will have a fertile ground for their recruitment activities in their bid to take over the country.
“In the case of the bishops, it is rather hazy; they are either getting bad advice or are totally ignorant of modern day economics. Perhaps those giving the wrong advice to the bishops are actually communist cadres who were ordered by Joma Sison to enter the priesthood in order to infiltrate the church as the church is a very influential institution. The press has already been infiltrated by the Reds as can be gleamed from news items sympathetic to the communist cause in several newspapers.”
This should bring us back to the question of whether Congress ought to extend CARP without the proper due diligence. There is a DAR/GTZ study on CARP that shows that its implementation resulted in a significant drop in our food production, especially rice production. So I urge the government to take steps to improve our rice production so we can be self-sufficient in our food production and save ourselves from the looming global food crisis.
* * *
For e-mail responses to this article, write to vsbobita@mozcom.com. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.philstar.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow, “Straight from the Sky,” shown every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.