MANILA, Philippines — A lawmaker has urged the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) to do an emergency makeover of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) complex after finding out that the airport generated P1.17 billion net profit in travel tax collections in 2009.

Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara said that NAIA, which travelers ranked as the “world’s worst airport,” also grossed P7.5 billion in 2009.

“Lack of funds can never be an excuse on why the Ninoy Aquino International Airport continues to be beset by poor facilities because year in and year out, it is turning in a tidy profit,” Angara said.

He said MIAA, which operates the three NAIA terminals and the old domestic terminal, posted a before-tax net profit of P1.17 billion out of a gross income P7.5 billion in 2009 before remitting P838 million to the National Treasury as national government share.

Angara said MIAA’s 2010 income should have massively increased on the back of the surge in the number of passengers enticed by cheap fares offered by budget airlines, like the Cebu Pacific, which saw its number of passengers jumped 19 percent to 10.5 million last year.

The MIAA collects an “airport user’s charge” of P200 and P750 from each departing domestic and international passenger, respectively. In 2010, it handled 27.1 million passengers, ranking it 48th in the world.

On top of the airport fee, Filipino citizens and permanent residents in the country travelling abroad are required to pay a travel tax of P1,620, if flying economy or P2,700, if holding a first-class ticket.

“If this is what government earns, then I think it isn’t asking too much if we request it to plow back some money for the repair of toilets, upholster some lounging chairs, and install additional air-conditioners,” Angara said.

“It is not the government who should receive dividends alone; the traveling public must feel their taxes and fees working for them, too,” he stressed.

Angara issued the statement after the travel website “The Guide to Sleeping in Airports” ranked the NAIA Terminal 1, which it tagged last year as the fifth worst airport in the world and the worst in Asia, as this year’s “world’s worst airport.”

Earlier, Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teodoro Casino filed a resolution urging the House Committee on Transportation to look into the managerial and financial problems besting NAIA.

Meanwhile, Malacañang downplayed the proposal to sell the old NAIA Terminal 1 to the private sector, saying that such plan is just one of the suggestions being studied by the government.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte stressed that for now, the government’s priority is to rehabilitate the 30-year-old terminal, after it was voted the “world’s worst airport” in a recent online poll.

Valte was reacting to Sen. Ralph G. Recto’s statement that selling the NAIA 1 to a private group could mean “letting go of a cultural structure that once defined the country as the home of Asia’s first airline.”

“That is one of the suggestions, but only one of the suggestions being studied apart from transferring the airport to Clark (Pampanga). At this point, these are all being studies. At present, we are doing what we can to rehabilitate NAIA 1,” Valte said. (With a report from JC Bello Ruiz)