Dubai: Filipino expatriates slammed a new policy by Philippine airport authorities to require them to pay terminal fees beginning October 1 and then queue up to refund it later.
Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) earlier signed an agreement with air carriers flying international routes to the Philippines to include the 550 peso (Dh45) International Passenger Service Charge, better known as terminal fee, into the price of airline tickets beginning October 1.
The move is aimed at eliminating long queues at airport terminals since the fees are currently collected manually at airport counters.
Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) are, by law, exempted from paying terminal fees. But with this development, terminal fees will be automatically charged to customers when buying tickets online or from travel agents outside the Philippines beginning October 1.
OFWs, however, can have the fee refunded once in the Philippines provided they show proof of entitlement such as the Overseas Employment Certificate or travel exit clearance, a statement sent to Gulf News by the media office of MIAA read. Refund counters will be located after the immigration counters in all terminals or at the MIAA Administration Office.
Gulf News contacted MIAA officials for a comment but was only given a statement stating the same.
Beverly Castro, one of the administrators of Global OFW Voices, an online group of about 24,000 Filipinos around the world, including the UAE, said the move did not solve any issue, but instead created another burden for OFWs.
“They said they wanted to decongest the terminals by removing the long queues for terminal fee payment. But they just created another one [for the refund counters] and they just transferred the burden to OFWs this time,” Castor told Gulf News.
The group launched an online petition with change.org, hoping to defer the implementation of the policy until a resolution favourable to all parties is arrived at, Castro said. The petition has received around 1,700 signatures.
Yuri Cipriano, a safety engineer and a former community leader, agreed.
“What’s unfortunate here is that they introduced another policy without consulting the stakeholders first. This is an added stress and burden on OFWs. So now we are required to pay and then queue up again later or before leaving the country to get our refund. It’s all a joke,” Cipriano told Gulf News.
Nhel Morona, country representative of rights group Migrante-UAE, said: “Thousands of OFWs leave the country each day. Just getting the mandatory employment certificate is already chaotic, how much more is getting a refund from Philippine coffers?”
An estimated 11 million Filipinos work overseas around the world. They comprise 25 per cent of the total departing passengers at Philippine airports, figures from MIAA show.
MIAA collects an average of 8.36 million pesos per day in international terminal fees. For the year 2013, the agency collected a gross of 3.052 billion pesos in international terminal fees.
