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How did a phone bill get that large?
It turns out that there is a group of reporters from various media outfits who have been assigned at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). They are collectively called the NAIA Press Corps and they have an office on the premises.
The NAIA Press Corps office recently got some “shocking” (for lack of a better word) news regarding their phone bill. The amount? PHP2.8 million.
NAIA Press Corps president Raoul Esperas — who works for dwIZ — told Kristine Felisse Mangunay in the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) sent the group a letter last May 18.
In it, MIAA reminded the group that they “requested a landline in July 1999 and had since incurred bills amounting to PHP2,849,033.21.” The letter had been signed by Ma. Julieth Torres, officer in charge of the airport collection division.
The “PHP2,849,033.21” indicated by Torres is supposed to be the telephone, EVAT, and interest charges from October 1999 to April 2015.
Esperas was quoted as saying, “In any typical press corps, they don’t charge you. They provided us an office more than two decades ago. It was part of their support [for] they believe we could help them in disseminating information.”
However, MIAA Assistant General Manager Vicente Guerzon sees it differently, saying, “When they applied for a telephone [line], there was an undertaking that was put in writing. They have been paying and then suddenly it stopped. We need to have a justification [before the Commission on Audit] as to why it was not being paid.”
Photo: MorgueFile
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