PAL to charge ex-employees who blocked catering truck

Flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) is preparing charges against former employees who blocked one of its catering trucks from exiting its inflight center, it said Sunday. In a statement, PAL counsel Clara de Castro said its security personnel have identified the truncheon-wielding protesters who allegedly blocked Gate 1 of the airline’s inflight center along the Manila International Airport Road, Pasay City on Saturday. To prevent PAL trucks from leaving the airline’s facility, the former employees allegedly placed on the road wooden planks with nails and set a carton box on fire. Not the first time “This is not the first time that former PAL workers prevented PAL employees and vehicles from entering and leaving its facility. But Saturday’s well-documented blocking of a PAL catering van shows how brazen they have become," De Castro said. GMA News Online was still trying to reach the PAL Employees’ Association (PALEA), which has been picketing outside the PAL office in Pasay City, as of posting time. The charges that PAL lawyers are preparing include those for violation of PAL’s property rights, its right to use its vehicles and buildings, and its right to allow workers or service providers to enter or leave its facility without being harassed. PAL’s right to free access to and from its own facility is “absolute" and guaranteed by the Constitution, De Castro pointed out. Libel charges Meanwhile, the flag carrier is also preparing libel charges against protesters who claimed that the airline hired “goons" to disperse their camp. “Baseless allegations of dispersal [are] a poor attempt by protesting workers to cover up their own blatant violations by threatening harm against PAL personnel who want to bring out PAL property from its inflight center," De Castro said. PALEA has been staging a picket due to a labor dispute with PAL after the airline subjected over 2,600 regular employees and union members to a mass retrenchment to accommodate a new outsourcing scheme. — Paterno Esmaquel II/KBK, GMA News