Solon says resignation depends upon person amid NAIA air traffic mess

The chairman of the House transportation committee sought Tuesday a probe on the shutdown of Philippine airspace due to outage of the air traffic system of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) on New Year’s day but stopped short of calling for resignation of liable officials.

“Resignation is...depende sa tao, kung may delicadeza siya o wala (it depends on the person...if that person has shame or otherwise),” panel chairman Antipolo Representative Romeo Acop said in a Super Radyo dzBB interview.

He said he will be filing a House resolution probing the NAIA incident this week.

“Hindi na dapat maulit ito. Napapahiya na ang ating bansa eh (This should never happen again. This is embarrassing for our country),” Acop said.

He said a probe is needed to find out if the filing of charges are in order.

“We need to conduct an investigation first since this is part of due process,” Acop, a retired police officer, said.

“If the evidence warrants, charges will be filed,” he added.

On January 1,  the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines’ (CAAP) Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Systems for Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) malfunctioned which affected at least 282 flights.

CAAP Director General Manuel Tamayo earlier said they cannot guarantee that the malfunctioning of the air traffic management system will not happen again because their equipment is supposedly outdated.

But Acop said Tamayo’s pronouncements will be challenged during the congressional inquiry.

“We’ll see if he is telling the truth, that there was a power surge, that their circuit breaker and the back up didn’t work too,” he said.

“Maintenance audit should also be looked into because we had a pandemic and the airports were not fully operational for quite a while,” he added.

Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) secretary general Renato Reyes, in a statement, said an incident as severe as the cancellation of all flights should already be a cause for the resignation of concerned officials.

"There has to be a point of accountability for the failure to ensure that the system will work despite power interruptions. We are hearing many explanations but we hear no one taking full responsibility for the New Year's day fiasco," he said.

House ways and means panel chairperson Joey Salceda earlier sought compensation for passengers affected by air traffic system outage in NAIA.

Salceda said this can be done by CAAP by certifying that the air traffic management system power issue as a safety reason for flight cancellations to allow passengers with cancelled flights to be eligible for full reimbursement should they choose to avail of the option.—AOL, GMA Integrated News