Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) will remain exempted from paying the required $12 airport terminal fee following its planned integration into the price of international airline tickets starting in October, a government spokesman has assured.
Connie Bungag, the spokesman of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), explained that such exemption was mandated by law known as the Amended Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995.
Bungag pointed out that expatriate Filipinos buying international tickets in the Philippines only have to present their OFW employment certificates to avail of the exemption.
For airline tickets with the corresponding terminal fee purchased abroad, it could be refunded at booths to be set up at the NAIA, Bungag said.
Earlier, Secretary Joseph Abaya of the Department of Transportation and Communication said the move would help decongest the NAIA, the country’s premiere airport named after the late assassinated opposition senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, the father of president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino.
“It will improve traveling convenience and efficiency at the NAIA by removing a process which unnecessarily adds to the passenger processing time, requiring them to line up when payment (of the terminal fee) can be done ahead of time,” Abaya said.
Besides, Abaya emphasized the policy was in line with international standards, pointing out that the Philippines was the only member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) that continued to collect such fees on a face-to-face basis at the airport.--Source: Gulf News