Saludo blocks approval of Japanese  airline as flag carrier

In a bid to quash attempts by a Japanese-controlled airline to continue operating as the Philippine flag carrier, Congressman Aniceto Saludo, Jr. filed a resolution in the House of Representatives to investigate the alleged connivance among top government officials to conceal the truth in order to facilitate the approval of the airline’s certificate to operate.

Through House Resolution 870, Saludo urged the House leadership to investigate into the alleged conspiracy of top government officials in order to facilitate the approval of CLA Air Transport Co. as the Philippine flag carrier and for possible violation of the Anti-dummy Law due to misrepresentation of the company’s ownership.

Saludo said that officials from the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) and the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) have suppressed pertinent information about the real ownership of CLA Air Transport Co. which misled President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to approve said airline as the official flag carrier of the country.

According to Saludo, CLA has deliberately misrepresented its ownership by claiming that majority of its shares are owned by Filipino stockholders.  Documents that he was able to secure prove that the CLA is owned 51 percent by Filipinos and 49 percent by Japanese investors, in violation of the Constitutional provision, which specifically mandates a 60 percent ownership by Filipinos of any public utility.

Saludo revealed that most of the positions in the present CLA Board of Directors are held by the Japanese, which in effect, give the control of the airline’s operation to the Japanese and the Filipinos are being used only as dummies.

“The application of CLA Air Transport for the extension of its permit to operate has already been denied in 1999, precisely because of the problems arising from its ownership composition.  I cannot imagine why, this time, it has been endorsed by officials from DOTC and CAB to Malacañang for approval”, Saludo protested.

Unaware of the preconditions, President Arroyo has signed the extension of the CLA’s certificate to operate, depriving other Filipino-owned airline companies of the right to fly as the official Filipino flag carrier.

“The endorsement of the CLA’s certificate to operate to Malacañang and its consequent approval by the President constitutes a well-planned and executed conspiracy to circumvent the Constitution and a sell-out of the national interest,” Saludo alleged.

(Released on April 2, 2003)