Pangilinan deep in talks to buy PAL

Business mogul Manuel V. Pangilinan has agreed to buy Philippine Airlines (PAL) once the labor row at the flag carrier is resolved, a businessman with close ties to him said Wednesday.

The source, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the topic, said the top honcho of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) had “agreed in principle” to buy the airline from Lucio Tan.

“The discussions are already at a serious stage. Manny has been eyeing PAL for a long time,” the source said.

However, the businessman said Pangilinan would only acquire PAL once its labor row with its ground crew union, the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (Palea), was resolved.

Palea had challenged in the Court of Appeals the plan of PAL management to let go of 2,600 employees by the end of the month by outsourcing the airline’s in-flight catering, ground services and call-center reservation operations.

Salary increase

“That is expected to be resolved soon,” the source said.

The source added Pangilinan wanted to go into PAL with its workforce slimmed down to its core services so he could make it more profitable.

He said Pangilinan would motivate the remaining employees by increasing their salaries and financial benefits.

“Manny feels bad whenever he gives only 14th month pay. He believes that employees shall be financially motivated but this is only possible if he has a manageable number as far as PAL is concerned,” the source said.

He said Pangilinan was strongly in favor of the move to outsource PAL’s services.

Palea, however, seeks to stop the outsourcing plan.

“As Palea celebrates its (65th anniversary), we made a vow to defeat the union-busting scheme of Philippine Airlines that is masquerading as an outsourcing plan. Palea intends to have many more birthdays to come and to serve PAL employees and the Filipino workers to a ripe old age,” said Gerry Rivera, Palea president and vice chairman of Partido ng Manggagawa.

Rivera said Palea was heartened by the recent Supreme Court ruling ordering PAL to reinstate 1,400 flight attendants the management dismissed during a pilots’ strike 13 years ago.

“The flight attendants were dismissed in 1998 at a time when PAL was obviously facing losses but the courts nonetheless saw that the financial difficulties were not serious enough to merit a mass layoff,” Rivera said.

“Thus, we believe that both the (Court of Appeals) and (Supreme Court) will both rule against PAL’s outsourcing plan. Like (in) the (flight attendants’) case, PAL argued for the outsourcing plan on supposed losses which have been disproved by the company’s own financial statements proving the flag carrier is highly profitable,” he added.