Open Letter To Cebu Pacific’s Ignorance Re Special Child

Dear Cebu Pacific,

I could not believe how ignorant and racist your staff were on your December 23, 2009 flight for them to disallow a special child along with her mother to board your airplane bound for Manila from HongKong because they mistook the child with autism as someone who is mentally ill.  I think you should suspend those staff and put them back to school or better yet let me talk to them and teach them about autism.  Or better, get all your staff attend a two-day Introduction to Autism seminar by CARD so they can understand better and not make the same mistake again regarding children with special needs.

Your apology is not accepted. With the way you handled the situation delaying the flight for an hour and embarrassing the parent.  That act alone is a violation of Republic Act 9442 or the Magna Carta for Disabled Person which was signed last April 30, 2009 by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.  The law which prohibits verbal or non-verbal ridicule and vilification against persons with disability.

If you don’t know, my daughter has autism and we were in your airplanes last year, December 25, 2008 round trip to HongKong.  It was surprisingly a pleasant experience for me and my daughter, I even wrote a post about the experience in this blog because it was her first airplane trip.

This incident is a surprise for me, to actually believe Cebu Pacific is a family friendly airline.  I even recommended it to my friends who has kids with autism.

If the child is not disruptive and the parents can control them, I don’t see any reason to disallow two special children on board the same flight in your airplane.  During our trip back to Manila my child and I was aboard a trip with like 10 other kids, some of them are young fussy ones, crying almost half the trip, but since most of the passengers were parents, grandparents and kids, we understood that the child is probably feeling discomfort because of the air pressure.

To the parent of that child go for the suit, we will support you.  Let’s teach ignorant people that their insensitive ways can not be tolerated.


To Cebu Pacific, mental retardation and autism are two different things.  Learn that and learn that well!

To the airline industry I think its time to have an airline that caters to people with disability.

Your sincerely,

Earth Rullan