Press Release
August 15, 2013
PALEA
The Philippine Airlines Employees’ Association (PALEA)
called on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to dismiss the case against 241 of
its members for alleged violation of the Civil Aviation Authority Act (CAAA) even
as it welcomed the filing of charges against a prosecutor for an extortion
attempt. Yesterday DOJ assistant prosecutor Diosdado Solidum Jr. was freed after
posting bail a day after the Ombudsman filed raps for mulcting P2.4 million
from PALEA in return for the dropping of the CAAA case.
“It
behooves the DOJ to dismiss the harassment case against the PALEA 241 because
of a fatal flaw. Lawyers of Philippine Airlines do not have any clearance from
the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in filing the case. Any complaint
arising from a labor dispute requires such a clearance before civil courts can
take jurisdiction,” asserted Gerry Rivera, PALEA president and vice chair of
Partido ng Manggagawa.
A new DOJ prosecutor is now
handling PALEA’s petition for review after Solidum was arrested in an
entrapment operation Thursday last week. PALEA filed the petition for review
after a Pasay fiscal
found probable cause for violation of Section 81 of CAAA pertaining to disruption
and destruction of airport services and facilities during PALEA’s protest
against outsourcing in September 27, 2011.
“We salute DOJ Secretary Leila de Lima for her iron will to fight
corruption within her department and in government as shown in the entrapment
of Solidum and the crusade against Juliet Lim Napoles. But we urge her to
struggle for justice too as workers are wronged by fiscals and prosecutors who
make erroneous anti-labor decisions,” Rivera asserted.
Rivera added that the harassment case has a chilling effect
on labor relations and is a clear and present danger to workers rights. “Labor protests will then be banned in the
aviation industry with workers penalized by both imprisonment and fine in violation
of constitutionally guaranteed rights. This will be a grave precedent and new
special laws can then be enacted to deny workers the freedoms of assembly,
expression, self-organization and strike,” he
explained.
He explained that “The
decision is void of any legal basis as no damages were committed to airport
facilities. Moreover the case is a labor issue and thus prior authority from
the DOLE and DOJ should have been secured prior to the filing of the complaint.
The CAAA is also explicit in providing that 'only the Director General' can
file the appropriate charges and not the PAL Vice-President of the Airport
Services as in this case.”
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