Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 21) — The Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) on Tuesday admitted lapses in its security protocols following the alleged human smuggling incident at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) last week.
“Based po sa initial investigation na ginawa ng aming team sa MIAA, may mga pagkukulang po na nangyari,” said MIAA general manager Cesar Chiong during the Senate’s joint committee hearing on the incident. [Translation: Based on the initial investigation done by our team in MIAA, there were lapses on our end.] Senator Grace Poe earlier said that a plane left NAIA for Dubai on Feb. 13 without a pre-flight inspection, and carrying foreign passengers who were not on the manifest.Poe added that the General Declaration held by the Bureau of Immigration listed seven passengers. However, the Philippine National Police’s Aviation Security Group said that there were eight passengers.Chiong confessed that airport authorities failed to check the passengers inside the vehicles going inside. “The first one, ang chineck lang po nila ay yung driver, hindi po yung pasahero o yung mga sakay dun sa sasakyan,” he said. [Translation: The first one, they only checked the driver and not the passengers inside the vehicle.] Poe said that the security personnel should have done that in the first place for safety reasons. “Mas marami nga ang naghatid kaysa yung pasahero mismo,” she said.[Translation: More people sent them off than the passengers themselves.] “Di ba dapat kapag may pumapasok na ganyan, nililista niyo kung sino-sino yung mga ‘yun na nasa loob? Kasi kung may nangyari doon sa loob, at least alam ninyo yung mga tao na pwede niyong balikan.”[Translation: Shouldn’t you be taking note of everyone entering the airport premises? Because if anything happens inside, at least you’d have an idea on who you should look for.] But Chiong clarified that the plate numbers were checked based on the list of vehicles entering the NAIA. Meanwhile, Senator Raffy Tulfo suggested that high-profile personalities should undergo the same security process just like normal passengers. “I would recommend, na itong mga VIP passengers…stop muna yung sasakay muna sila sa kanilang private vehicles at didiretso sa eroplano mismo,” he said. “They should be processed just like everybody else. Dumaan sila sa process na ifi-frisk, pinapatanggal yung sapatos, belt, at dadaan sa immigration booth.” [Translation: I would recommend that these VIP passengers should not go directly to the plane from their vehicles. They should be processed just like everybody else. They should undergo frisking, remove their shoes and belt, and pass through the immigration booth.]For his part, Chiong proposed to have a one-stop processing center for high-profile passengers. “Ang recommendation namin after this incident is to have a one-stop shop processing center. And the first recommendation that we have is to do it in the terminal,” he said. [Translation: Our recommendation after this incident is to have a one-stop shop processing center. And we are recommending to do it in the terminal.] “Ideally, sa ibang bansa, what they have is a general aviation terminal, naka-separate din po yung commercial flights and private jets.” [Translation: Ideally, in other countries, they have a general aviation terminal where commercial flights and private jets are separate.]
