Travel agencies passport service to end soon?

Finally, the official Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) report on the August 18th crash that took the lives of DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo and Aviatours owner and pilot of the ill-fated Seneca II Capt. Jessup Bahinting and his front seat passenger Kshitiz Chand, was released no less than by President Aquino. The results of course were unofficially released by still unnamed sources within the CAAP which proves that CAAP Director General William Hotchkiss has to double time to plug the leaks in the agency that he heads.

We already wrote about that leaked report and since it was very accurate, we won’t write anymore on this… but make my usual comment that this crash was blamed squarely on Capt. Jessup Bahinting. As we already wrote earlier, “Dead men tell no tales.” While the committee created by then DOTC Sec. Mar Roxas was a little bit more independent than what CAAP always comes up with, they still ended up blaming the pilot who obviously can no longer defend himself.

This is not to cast doubt on the committee headed by Capt. Amado Soliman Jr. whom I regard very highly; but I don’t buy their statement that says Capt. Bahinting made an error in flying to Masbate when he had already developed engine trouble… that he should have flown back to Mactan where the runways are larger and with better crash and fire rescue facilities. Remember the plane crashed unexpectedly.

As for any possible collusion between Aviatours and CAAP officials on aircraft inspection… we will never know the truth unless CAAP Director General Hotchkiss conducts a thorough clean up of CAAP. Like it or not, CAAP is no better than its other DOTC brother agencies like MARINA, LTFRB or LTO which are perceived to be highly corrupt agencies. Lastly, it is time for P-Noy to have a law creating the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) that will conduct independent probes on disasters.

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I met Mr. Robert “Bobby” Joseph last Tuesday in Cebu during the 888 Forum and he gave me a copy of his letter to P-Noy reiterating his call to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to lift the deadline wherein travel agencies are allowed to provide passport services to their clients, stressing that this move is not only discriminatory, but it is also against the law, specifically the Passport Act of 1996.

Last June the DFA issued a directive that ordered all accredited travel agencies only up to Dec. 31, 2012 to offer passport assistance services to the public. The DFA also gave these agencies only five percent of the daily demand for passport service of each consular office and restricted travel agency representatives from entering consular offices to assist their clients. This has been the practice since time immemorial and no one was complaining about this. So how come the DFA issued this stupid directive?

Doesn’t the DFA have problems of their own that they are now trying to change something that has been working for so many decades? Haven’t these DFA officials learned anything about that American saying, which goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” But what the DFA directive will do is to make passport application a hassle because now we can no longer rely on the assistance of our travel agents. That would be okay for people who have nothing better to do, but for busy people like me it’s going to be hell!

I thanked Bobby Joseph for championing the rights of the small and micro travel agencies because apparently no one has taken the cudgels on their behalf. Here is a man fighting for his life because of cancer. Yet, he goes around town, even comes to Cebu regularly to link government agencies to the private sector for better cooperation. At this point, we already have the Tourism Congress… yet it seems powerless in helping the travel agencies in their predicament. We can only hope that the President will put a stop to this nonsense because the DFA directive is really nonsense!

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There are many activities happening in Cebu this week. Last Tuesday was the 2nd National Conference of Independent Business Clubs & Chambers held at the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel with the theme “Game Changers for Philippine Competitiveness.” Today, also at the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel, is the National Seaweed Convention 2012 from Nov. 15 to 16. Both national conferences feature top cabinet secretaries speaking on their respective fields of endeavor. I have no doubt that these conferences will be used by the cabinet secretaries for their own propaganda purposes. But what we need is the bottom line. For instance, I hope someone will explain to the attendees why foreign direct investments (FDI) to the Philippines went down a whopping 83%, despite all the expensive travels by President Aquino.

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