Open Skies EO has not gotten off the ground!

Philippine Star
September 22, 2011

Last Monday, the Department of Tourism (DoT) held a road show on Executive Order No. 29 a.k.a. Open Skies Policy at the Grand Hotel in Cebu City. They had only one resource speaker, Atty. Jose Claro S. Tesoro who tried to sell this outdated idea called Open Skies Policy. In the end, we learned that this is not really a fully opened Open Skies policy as the EO still features a Philippine Air Negotiating Panel. What do we need to negotiate if we open our skies already huh?

The proponents for the Open Skies policy insist that when we embrace it, there will be a flood of foreign airlines coming to the country. Hence I asked a simple question, “How many airlines have come to the Philippines since EO No. 29 was signed by the President?” Atty. Tesoro told me that Tiger Air was going to fly from Singapore to Davao. But I have previous knowledge that this was planned during the time of President GMA.

I pressed on that the Open Skies Policy was a failure in the sense that for the Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) there were 70 entitlements given to foreign airlines, but they never came. Atty. Tesoro’s reply was, we did not do enough to promote Cebu to those airlines. That reply begs the question as to who should promote Cebu? Well, years ago during the dark years of Martial Law, Cebu did promote itself as “An Island in the Pacific” and it was a great hit as Japanese tourists came to Cebu on chartered flights. But since the return to democracy, I thought that promoting the Philippines is the job of the DOT? I hope we’re not getting confusing signals here. This is why I believe that the Open Skies Policy hasn’t lifted off.