Tag: OFW

Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA)

Global News Philippines
NAIA, Photo by PH Morton

NAIA, Photo by PH Morton

Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA)

 

While on holiday in the Philippines, we visited quite a few places far and wide; from end to end of the country.

Several times, we found ourselves at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) to catch our flight provided by either the flagship, Philippine Airline and sometimes the slightly cheaper, Cebu Pacific.

What I can say is that, it was shambolic and chaotic each time.

We had a delay of upto a couple of hours for all our flights!

Both Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific were very clear that the faults were in no way in their corner but from the NAIA itself. Apparently, there were just too many flights, much, much more than NAIA’s traffic control can comfortably cope with.

When we went to Palawan via Philippine Airlines, they had to announce in their tannoy for any volunteer willing to postpone their flight for a latter one as it seemed they were overbooked. never heard of such before!

Also some of the domestic airports charge an additonal fee, which is called airport or travel tax; we had to pay at a counter before boarding a plane.

Where does this tax raised go?

Certainly not in maintaining the airport such as improving the largely inaudible tannoy systems as well the often poor condition and inadequate numbers of toilets (comfort room) especially for women.

We guess the so called taxes raised would ultimately end up ‘lining the pockets’ of corrupt officials as seems to be the practice generally.

No wonder, NAIA is in the top 10 worst airport in the world, it just can’t handle and provide good service on time, especially on its national flights.

Additionally, not a long time a go, it came out that there were numerous incidents involving what infamously became known as laglag bala.  This heinous activity involved criminals being allowed to take over some baggage checks duties, which put fears to every decent Filipino and foreign travellers to and from the Philippines.

These criminals would choose the vulnerable and some Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) to victimise. The modus operandi was to plant bullets to their target’s luggage. They would then give their victim a choice of being taken to the police to answer for  ‘supposed’ crime or pay the fine of up to P50,000 ($1065) and get on their plane on time.

Such was our frustrations with the airline/airports NAIA delays, we decided that it was better to use road coaches to reach destinations even if it meant 10-hour drive instead of a much shorter journey via air travels.

It is not only domestic flights that are affected. Our flight home via Doha was delayed nearly an hour due to NAIA’s inability to cope with air traffic. Thank goodness, there was a 3½ hours stopover in Doha, enough to swallow the delay from Manila.

We do have to acknowledge the friendliness of the staff and some customer service at the NAIA. The airline staff were very helpful, friendly and stoic in putting up with the moans and complaints of passengers due to  the delays, etc.

Poor travel experience is such a shame as the Philippines would get more tourists to see its many wonders if not for the poor NAIA performance, which sadly shows no signs of improvement.

A complete revamp is much needed, no doubt about it.  Perhaps it should start with going back to its old name – Manila International Airport (MIA).  It had a better reputation compared to the jinxed Ninoy Aquino’s bloody history.

Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) – A Shamble

Made in Manila

Blogs BUSINESS & FINANCE Philippines
As many know, Filipinos work in most countries in the world.  Wherever they work and, certainly in the UK, Filipinos are regards as hard working, reliable,  law abiding, unobtrusive and friendly.
Many are overqualified (being university graduates) for the work they do mainly in domestic service.
To prepare these maids made in Manila can enrol in an academy, which would train them in anything housekeeping.
Many came to the UK as excellent trained  nurses and carers. Not so well known is  that the Philippines has excellent technical colleges & universities and  produced many computer technicians, programmers and coders who use their expertise around the world.
These workers, the carpenters, engineers, nurses, teachers and domestic helpers alike are known in the Philippines as  OFW (Overseas Filipino Workers).  They send millions of pounds to their families back home and contribute greatly to the national economy. Many international companies now outsource services to the Philippines too.

Trainee maids learning to cook

 Maids Made in Manila

Stephen Sackur, a BBC correspondent has recently posted an interesting article about these workers &  the growth in both the economy and population in the Philippines. Here is the article.

The Philippines has one of the fastest growing economies in Asia – but there aren’t enough jobs to go around. So every year the government teaches thousands of people the skills they need to get jobs abroad.

When I arrive at the state-run Housemaids Academy in Manila morning exercises are well under way. A squad of uniformed cleaners is poking feather dusters into all corners of the sitting room. In the kitchen trainee cooks are immersed in the finer points of salad preparation.

The academy has the feel of a soap-opera set – each room meticulously dressed to ape the reality of a grand residence. Below stairs is a classroom filled with old fashioned school desks. Here, I’m told, the trainee house servants take lessons in hygiene, respect and personal finance.

The Philippines government schools tens of thousands of maids, chauffeurs, mechanics and gardeners every year, with the express purpose of launching them into long-term service abroad.

For the state it’s a win-win. These economic exiles – there are are currently some 10 million of them – send back foreign currency which is the lifeblood of the Filipino economy. And the extraordinary exodus of labour acts as a safety valve in a country struggling to provide home-grown jobs for a population rising by more than two million every year.

“We are proud of what we are doing,” one of the trainee maids, Maria, tells me. “We are national heroes.” That was a phrase first coined in a government propaganda campaign, and it’s clear that the 20 young women now gathered around me – all immaculately uniformed and polite to a fault – desperately want it to be true.

“It can’t be easy leaving your families behind,” I suggest.

“We have no choice,” replies Evelyn, an elfin figure no more than 5ft tall. “I have a baby at home but no way to support him. The wages I earn in Kuwait will mean my mother can raise him.”

Many of the other trainees nod in sympathy – almost all, it seems, are facing the prospect of separation from their children for at least three years, possibly many more. Their reality will be prolonged servitude in an alien culture.

The mood in the academy has darkened. Half the young women before me are now weeping.

Trainee maids learning to clean
Trainee maids washing clothes

Alongside the remittances of overseas workers, there’s a new phenomenon keeping the Philippines economy afloat. It’s known as BPO, business process outsourcing – you could call it the rise of the call centre economy. More and more Western companies have moved their low-cost back-office operations to the Philippines.

“We’ve overtaken India,” Dyne Tubbs, a manager at Transcom call centres, boasts as we survey her army of Filipino telephonists handling calls on behalf of a UK parcels delivery company. It’s midnight in Manila, 4pm in London and the phones are red hot, as they will be until dawn.

Call centre

“British companies love us because our English is not accented. The brightest graduates from our universities fight to get a job here. We only take the smartest kids. And after we’ve finished training them they even get your British sarcasm,” says Tubbs.

One third of the Filipino population is under 15 years old. The country may have found a unique niche in the global economy but current rates of economic growth, though impressive, will not sustain a population projected to double from 100 to 200 million within 30 years. Which is why Jane Judilla may just hold the key to the Philippines economic future. Jane isn’t an entrepreneur or a politician, she’s a reproductive health worker who spends her days in some of Manila’s most squalid slums.

Manila

Thanks to a law pushed through by the government last year, she’s now permitted to offer the poorest Filipinos free access to condoms, the contraceptive pill, even sterilisation for women who want it. The Catholic Church, which commands the loyalty of 90% of Filipinos, fought the initiative tooth and nail but the clerics lost.

Judilla introduces me to Sheralyn Gonzales, a whey-faced woman of 30 with 10 children and another on the way. I ask Gonzales whether she’s happy. “I’ll be happy when I’ve had the baby and can get sterilised,” she says. “My eldest has dropped out of school, and we can barely afford to educate the others. I tell my children to have two kids, then use contraception.”

If the next generation of Gonzales’s heed her advice their country’s future is promising. If not, tens of millions of young Filipinos may find themselves stuck in a poverty trap, still dependent on overseas labour as a means of escape.