A group of lawyers has urged the Supreme Court to act swiftly on their petition seeking to block the impending increase in terminal fees at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia).
In an urgent motion filed Monday, the team led by lawyer Joel Butuyan asked the high court to immediately rule on their request for a temporary restraining order (TRO), a preliminary injunction, or a status quo ante order. They stressed that the hikes, scheduled to take effect on September 14, would inflict undue financial burden on passengers without proper due process.
“We are here dealing with people’s hard-earned money, of which they are already being deprived every day without due process of law,” the petitioners declared, underscoring the “extreme urgency” of halting the fee increases.
Under the Manila International Airport Authority’s (MIAA) Administrative Order No. 1, international terminal fees are set to jump by nearly 73 percent—from ₱550 to ₱950—while domestic terminal fees would almost double from ₱200 to ₱390.
The lawyers, who also include Ma. Soledad Deriquito-Mawis, Antonio Gabriel La Viña, Rogel Rayel, and Jose Mari Benjamin Francisco Tirol, earlier filed a 182-page petition challenging both the administrative order and the public-private partnership (PPP) concession agreement for Naia’s rehabilitation and operations. They named as respondents Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, the Department of Transportation, MIAA, the PPP Governing Board, and private concessionaire New Naia Infra Corp. (NNIC).
NNIC, which took over operations in October 2024 under the 15-year concession deal, has since imposed wide-ranging increases—from parking and landing fees to office space and commercial leases—some of which spiked by more than 200 percent. The petitioners warned that these costs are inevitably passed on to airlines, businesses, and ultimately the traveling public.
They argued that the agreement and the resulting fee hikes blatantly violated constitutional principles and existing laws, describing them as an “illegal order” that, if left unchecked, would cause “grave injustice and irreparable damage” to millions of travelers.
According to the motion, even if refunds were ordered later, recovering the amounts from the massive collections would be “immensely difficult,” making immediate judicial intervention necessary.
