House probes airport mess

A House panel chair will join other lawmakers in probing the supposed “technical glitch” and “power outage” that stranded at least 65,000 passengers at Ninoy Aquino International Airport on New Year’s Day.

Antipolo Rep. Romeo Acop, chair of the House Committee on Transportation, said in a radio interview that a Congressional inquiry is set to be filed on Wednesday to find out the truth behind the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines’ reason for the flight fiasco.

“We will make sure that this would not happen again. This is embarrassing for our country,” he said in Filipino when asked about the House resolution’s primary objective.

The legislators would also delve into CAAP Director General Manuel Tamayo’s claims that their supposed outdated equipment makes it impossible for them to guarantee that the air traffic control system’s problem won’t occur again.

“We’ll see if he is telling the truth, that there was a power surge, that their circuit breaker and the backup didn’t work, too,” said the solon. “Maintenance audit should also be looked into because we had a pandemic and the airports were not fully operational for quite a while.”

On Sunday, the country was virtually transformed into a “no-fly zone” for several hours, causing about 361 flights to and from Manila to be either canceled, diverted, or delayed.

The chaos, CAAP said, was caused by glitches in the air traffic navigation system and power outages. Tamayo said that one of the uninterruptible power sources failed on Sunday morning, necessitating troubleshooting.

Transport officials, however, earlier said billions of pesos’ worth of upgrades are needed to prevent a repeat of the technical issues.