Lawyers question NAIA concession agreement before SC

Lawyers on Monday filed a petition against the implementation of the concession agreement for the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Project, which transferred the management of the airport to the San Miguel-led New NAIA Infra Corporation (NNIC).

In a 182-page petition filed before the Supreme Court (SC), the petitioners sought a temporary restraining order, writ of preliminary injunction, or status quo ante order to prohibit the respondents from implementing the MIAA Revised Administrative Order No. 1 and the NAIA PPP Project Concession Agreement.

They also asked the SC to declare the order and the agreement as unconstitutional, illegal, and void.

“The government has left the Filipino people and all NAIA users to fend for themselves and to contend with an administrative rate regulation that is not only in violation of the law and against public policy, but that defies the all-important constitutional provisions on separation of power, due process, and equal protection of the laws,” the petitioners said.

The petitioners are lawyers Joel Butuyan, Soledad Derequito-Mawis, Tony La Viña, Roger Rayel, and Jose Mari Benjamin Francisco Tirol. 

Meanwhile, respondents are the Cabinet of the Executive Department, represented by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin; the Department of Transportation; the Manila International Airport Authority; the Pre-Qualification, Bids and Awards Committee for the NAIA public-private partnership project; the PPP Governing Board, and the New NAIA Infra Corp. 

The petitioners argued that Republic Act No. 11966 or the new PPP Code was not complied with during the bidding, award, and execution of the agreement. 

They said that the bidding process was conducted under the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) Law, even though it was already repealed by the new PPP Code.

“Respondents DOTr, MIAA and PBAC continued and concluded the bidding process for the Project as if the BOT Law was still in place, the PPP Code did not exist, and without making any attempt or adjustment to comply with the new or updated provisions of the PPP Code, as was their legal responsibility,” they said.

The petitioners also said that the concessionaire has been imposing and collecting “substantially higher fees and charges” since October 2024.

“Neither Petitioners nor any other user of NAIA upon whom the increased rates are directly or indirectly imposed is a party to the Concession Agreement,” they said.

“None of them was duly consulted prior to the hurried approval of the Project, the finalization of the Concession Agreement, or the promulgation of MIAA Revised Administrative Order No. 1, Series of 2024,” they added.

According to the petition, the passenger service charge will also increase from P550 to P950 for every departing international passenger and P200 to P390 for every departing domestic passenger starting September 2025.

The petitioners stressed that unlike other revenue fees and charges collected at NAIA, the government is not entitled to an 82.16% share under the passenger service charge under the revised administrative order and concession agreement.

Aside from this, the petitioners said the government “completely relinquished its regulatory power” in favor of the concessionaire.

“As it stands, the NAIA PPP Project is just privatization for privatization’s sake. From inception to implementation, the Project was never designed with the common good or public welfare in mind,” the petitioners said.

“To the government officials that conceptualized and that now implement this Project, people are nothing but paying statistics,” they added.

GMA News Online has reached out to the NNIC for comment. — BM, GMA Integrated News