Naia contractor ordered to end ‘bag quota system’

Naia. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) has ordered a subcontractor to stop its so-called baggage quota system following reports that porters at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) are being penalized if they fail to handle a target number of passenger bags per day.

“We believe this system is unproductive and affects the quality of services they are giving at the airport,” Ricardo Medalla Jr., MIAA assistant general manager for operations, told the Inquirer.

Upon instruction from MIAA general manager Jose Angel Honrado, Medalla wrote the president of D’Frada Allied Services Inc., Dolores dela Cruz, calling her company’s attention to the complaints regarding the porter services at Naia.

MIAA, the government body that runs the four terminals of the country’s premier gateway, awarded the porter services contract to D’Frada in August.

It began to outsource the services earlier this year to save cost while raising funds for the upgrade of airport facilities.

Under the contract, the airport authority gets 32 percent of the subcontractor’s earnings. The company charges P50 per piece of luggage carried by porters.

“This is to call your attention to… observations which are not in accordance with the prescribed standards for porterage and pushcarts retrieval services,” Medalla said in his letter dated Oct. 21 to D’Frada.

Porters interviewed by the Inquirer last week disclosed that D’Frada requires each of them to move a minimum of 45 bags a day and that they are fined P50 for every bag short of that quota. This means, for example, that if one porter moves only 30 bags during his shift, he will have to “pay” P750 to the company.

Failure to meet the quota or pay the amount due for three days will result in the porter’s suspension. A porter who has been suspended three times faces dismissal, the Inquirer also learned.

The porters, who are paid the minimum wage of P466 a day, admitted that just to meet their quotas, they would literally jostle against each other to get their hands on a passenger’s luggage and, on many occasions, badger the passengers into getting their services.

D’Frada officials did not return calls and reply to text messages when the Inquirer sought their comment.

In his letter to the company, Medalla noted that the quota system could be the reason why, of late, used pushcarts were not being immediately returned by the porters to the arrival area. With this “scarcity” of pushcarts, passengers were thus more likely to ask porters for help.

There was this “observation that D’Frada personnel concentrate on porter services only while the retrieval of pushcarts being used by passengers are given minimal attention,” the official told Dela Cruz. “Please be reminded that among the thrusts of the [MIAA] is passengers’ comfort and convenience. Hence, used pushcarts should be immediately retrieved to make the same available at all times for passengers’ use.”

In the interview, Medalla said he had instructed MIAA personnel to monitor if D’Frada had stopped the quota system in compliance with his order.