The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world
OR in the case of the airport’s “tanim-bala” episode, the hands that held the passenger’s luggage are so many, so that it is hard to trace who actually planted the bullet, to the detriment of the poor passenger.
Chief Supt. Francisco Balagtas, the director of the Aviation Security Group (Avsegroup), reported that in the course of a passenger’s short hop from the cab or jeepney that dropped him or her at the curbside to the X-ray scanner, there are seven stages where their hand-carried luggage is susceptible to the tanim-bala racket.
No wonder it is so hard to trace the perpetrator of this dastardly act. The tanim or laglag-bala, literally planting or dropping of bullets, in the bag of an unwary passenger so that they could be easy victim to shakedown has so embarrassed the nation that the authorities have finally got their act together and stop this madness before tourists and foreigners stop altogether from landing in our shores.
Out of this sorry affair, the airport authorities created a fact-find team to find out how one or two live bullets could find their way into the handcarried bag of an innocent passenger and here is what they found.
The finding, of course, did not include the fact that many superstitious Filipinos and their relatives purposely hide or slip into the bag of their departing relative, a piece of bullet to protect them from the many harms that are expected on their journey.
Chief Supt. Balagtas said that the first suspect to possibly plant the bullet is a relative or any member of a send-off party and the driver of their vehicle. That is not unusual since our culture of hatid-sundo requires that the whole barangay participate in this age-old tradition.
The second suspect is the security officer contracted by the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA). The MIAA usually pays a private security agency to provide security, what else, but the opportunity this provides the hired personnel to be able to gain access to the sensitive part of the airport becomes his ticket to corruption.
(To be continued)