CLARK FREEPORT – Seven employees of the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA) and the Miascor ground handling fi rm and a janitor have been fired after they were implicated in a travel tax scam at the Clark International Airport (CIA) here. .
The Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) declined to identify the seven, but said yesterday three were from TIEZA, three from Miascor, and one janitor from the McKleene janitorial firm.
CIAC information offi cer Rendy Isip said the seven were named by three complainants as the persons to whom they had paid supposedly discounted travel tax costing P1,200 each instead of the usual P1,620 tax for international travellers.
The names of the personnel, however, were withheld pending further investigation. “They offer lower travel tax rates but they do not issue receipts. The unsuspecting passengers become aware of this only when they are prevented from boarding their planes for lack of the receipt,” Isip said.
He noted that CIAC President-CEO Victor Jose Luciano had been receiving reports of passengers being gypped in such manner, but it was only the other day that complainants surfaced to identify the personnel allegedly involved.
“In some cases, the victims rush back to pay their travel tax at the proper counter before hurrying to catch their flight.
But in the case of the complainants who identified the erring personnel, they missed their flight, so they had the time to bring their grievances to the CIAC operations department,” Isip said.
He said that the seven apparently connived with each other. “They seemed aware that their victims would just again pay their travel tax at the proper counter instead of complaining because they would be in a hurry to catch their flight,” he added.
Luciano warned all personnel at the CIA against “engaging in any illegal activities” as he vowed to file charges against them. “We assure our passengers that we will exert all efforts to address their concerns and weed out the erring employees in the process,” he said.
