Letters to the editor

I am a Canadian citizen presently enjoying the sun and smiles of beautiful Sri Lanka. I would be failing in my duty if I don’t warn prospective air passengers of certain serious lapses on the part of certain airlines.

I flew with Cathay Pacific from Colombo to Hong Kong with two elderly Sri Lankan passengers on July 23. We stayed in Hong Kong till July 28 and then we flew to Denpasar in Indonesia and returned to Hong Kong on August 4.

At the time of booking we were told by our travel agent in Colombo that there would be no connecting flight from Hong Kong on August 4 and Cathay Pacific Airlines would provide us accommodation to stay in Hong Kong for one night.

On this condition, when Cathay Pacific in Colombo issued us the tickets on July 21, they also issued us a voucher for the Hotel Concourse and transfer from the Hong Kong Airport to the hotel and hotel to the airport.

The first lapse on the part of Cathay Pacific was when they had issued the voucher. They had written the wrong date on the voucher. Instead of writing the check-in date as August 4 and check out date as August 5, Cathay Pacific had erroneously written both check in and check out dates as August 4.

The second lapse on the part of Cathay Pacific was when we found to our utter disappointment, inconvenience and mental agony that there was no sign of anyone from the Hotel Concourse waiting for us on August 4, when we arrived from Denpasar, Indonesia. We looked everywhere with the Cathay Pacific voucher in our possession but there was no sign of anyone from the Hotel Concourse. Actually, if you go to Hong Kong today you will find that there is no Hotel Concourse!

My two elderly and feeble fellow passengers from Sri Lanka were now in a state of exhaustion. So I asked them to wait at the arrival hall and went to the Cathay Pacific enquiries desk at the Hong Kong Airport.

There was a long queue and Cathay Pacific had only two assistants at the desk. I waited in the queue for twenty minutes but there was no sign of the queue moving as the assistants took such a long time to deal with each member of the queue. I left the queue in disgust as I was concerned about the health of the two Sri Lankans. One was 76 years old and had undergone recent bypass heart surgery. The other was 75 years old and has high blood pressure in addition to being a diabetic patient needing constant monitoring and care.

On my way back to the arrival hall to meet the two Sri Lankans I saw a staff member of Cathay Pacific Airlines. I explained to her about the situation and showed her the voucher I got from Cathay Pacific Airlines Colombo. Then she took me to the shuttle bus service counter and spoke to someone about us.

Then a man came to help us and called the so-called Hotel Concourse. He told us that the Colombo office of Cathay Pacific Airlines had been evidently unaware that this so-called Hotel Concourse had changed its name to Metropark Hotel. Anyway this man suggested that we go to Metropark Hotel and explain the situation to the receptionist. We took the shuttle bus to the said hotel. When we arrived there it was 2 a.m. on August 5. By this time the two Sri Lankans and I had reached the limits of endurance.

When I presented the voucher issued by Cathay Pacific Airlines, Colombo at the front desk of the hotel they said that Cathay Pacific, Colombo had failed to confirm the issue of the said voucher and the hotel was not obliged to give us any accommodation! Realising the gravity of the situation with two elderly and feeble passengers with serious health problems I had to ultimately appeal to the hotel staff to grant us some accommodation at this ungodly hour at least on humanitarian grounds!

The passenger who had undergone bypass surgery complained of discomfort. The diabetic patient looked at the hotel receptionist like a tsunami victim begging for relief! She was complaining of a chest pain.

Finally the hotel agreed to give us a room key. Now the time was 2.30 a.m. and single- handed I had to carry 3 bags, one by one to the lift and then to the room.

Beggars can’t be choosers and there was no porter! The hotel staff was most unsympathetic, something uncharacteristic of any hotel in Sri Lanka! If we were not entitled to a porter, a hotel doctor would have been asking for the moon! Actually both passengers with me started to complain of their health conditions. I tried to get a hotel doctor. There was no hotel doctor!

I could only pray to God to save us from this misery and to somehow help us to get back to Sri Lanka which we were foolish enough to leave on a holiday, trusting Cathay Pacific.

To add insult to injury the Country Manager Sri Lanka and Maldives of Cathay Pacific Airways Limited who investigated my complaint writes: “I very much regret the treatment you received at the hands of the hotel and the confusion over the location and the confusion of the shuttle bus.

Although these were matters beyond our direct control, we have instructed our colleagues in Hong Kong to take the matter up with those responsible.

“In the hope of concluding this unfortunate sequence of events on a positive note, I would like to offer you a complimentary upgrade to business class, subject to availability, the next time you book an economy class ticket within the next 12 months.” Once bitten twice shy!

Increases in petrol, diesel and kerosene almost every fortnight are a burden on all of us. We hear and read on television and newspapers that the government sector owes millions to the Petroleum Corporation.

Why can’t these be collected? Are CPU officials so inefficient that they cannot collect what’s due to them, for what they give? Why should we have to pay for this?

Can we also afford a bloated Cabinet? Why can’t this be reduced so that the vast amounts spent on individuals can be put to greater use.

How can parents afford to spend so much for the transportation of their children to school? A poor man can barely even use kerosene, while others who went to Parliament riding on his shoulders live luxurious lives.

I wish the government would reduce the size of the Cabinet, collect dues and not hold people to ransom when the country is running at a loss.

Presumably, the report in your last issue on the Baby Sales Racket in Kurunegala and the photographs of the accused women covering their faces in shame would have caused feelings of revulsion and condemnation at first sight. This is an attempt to look at the other side of the coin. What are these women guilty of? Certainly not of getting pregnant for pregnancy is not a criminal offence. Evidently pregnancy is the outcome of sexual intercourse. But sexual intercourse itself is not a criminal offence if it does not amount to incest and takes place in privacy between consenting adults.

Pregnancy cannot be the outcome of a unilateral effort by a woman. Where are the men responsible for this state of affairs? In all probability, the real culprits were the men concerned. Some of these women would have been inveigled into the act or even forced into it by males in authority. It is a travesty of justice that the men enjoy immunity from censure while their partners are exposed to ridicule. For all one knows, the men responsible may be in the vanguard of the denouncers!

Be that as it may, what could a woman do when she finds herself with child involuntarily? The obvious choice would be abortion. Although some advanced countries permit voluntary abortion for good cause within a certain time limit, abortion is a criminal offence here, regardless of the progressive proclamations of our static Women's Charter. By refraining from aborting the foetuses these women have conformed to the law and prevented the attendant risks of an illegal abortion to themselves and certain destruction to the unborn children.

The women have been arrested when they were staying in a nursing home. Staying in a nursing home again, is not a criminal offence. The real offence itself is still embryonic and that would be the sale of the babies. These women have not come to that point yet and the law does not permit conviction in anticipation.

The state is invested with the power to intervene at the point of sale and intervention is a bounden duty here lest the babies end up in baby farms as body parts.

There are hundreds of married couples who are anxiously looking out to adopt children. Putting them in touch with the expected babies, subject to the terms and conditions of the Adoption Ordinance, would be a most meritorious act. Such positive action will provide relief to all parties, the childless couples, the endangered babies and the miserable ‘mothers by accident’.

On the contrary, executing the letter of the law will make these hapless women suffer for life for an act of passion and compromise the future of the products of that passion. I trust our women's rights groups would take time off their busy schedules to protect the life and privacy of the sad protagonists of this drama, despite the silence of our Constitution on these Fundamental Rights.

The lighter side of checkpoints

Just the other day, there was this massive search operation and all vehicles coming into Colombo were being checked. I happened to be one of them and was stopped in Maligawatte .

A makeshift point was placed on the pavement and on either side the men and the women were being checked.

There was this lady in the queue right in front of me who was being subjected to a body-check. She said, “Look, you seem to be having your hands all over me and my husband even does not do this”. Pat came the reply from the female police constable: “Look, there is nothing I can do about this.”

Well, I for one had a hearty laugh. You could take it anyway you please!!

Use their parents’ pensions to give them relief

This is a proposition to the All Ceylon Pensioners' Association, of which the 36th Annual General Meeting had been held on August 27, as reported in The Sunday Times.

There are unmarried daughters who depend on their parents' pension, who face the embarrassing situation of penury upon the demise of their parents.

Unless they are employed or have some income from whatever has been left by their parents, they will have to depend on relations or well-wishers, or in the alternative be thrown to the road.

The Pensioners' Society should consider taking up the case of these unmarried daughters of pensioners and convince the authorities to permit them to continue to receive their parents' pension.

They may be considered for part payment of the pension that their parents drew at the time of death.