Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez on Sunday said he will ask Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista to replace all personnel of the Office for Transportation Security assigned at the Manila airport after a recent incident of stealing from a Thai tourist, calling it a “national embarrassment.”
Romualdez requested a meeting this week at the House of Representatives with officials of the Department of Transportation to discuss the incident that took place at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, which he described as “very embarrassing and alarming.”
He said he would recommend to Bautista to replace all OTS personnel atthe airport with “honest and professional ones.” He said only OTS personnel with impeccable or good records should be allowed to re-apply for their posts.
“It sounds a bit extreme, but circumstances call for extreme measures.
If government personnel commit criminal acts against foreign visitors, the minute they land at the airport, it says a lot about our country.
So, it needs to be addressed sternly,” Romualdez said.
“It is embarrassing, and it makes us mad. How can we encourage tourists to come over to our country if they are thieves watching over them at our airports? Attracting tourists should be a priority, and an incident such as this does not help us in encouraging visitors to our country,” he added.
When re-applying, qualifications of OTS personnel should be subjected to the highest standards of public service and, if necessary, subject them to a lie detector test and re-training as new recruits, the Speaker said.
Last week, a screening officer at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 was nabbed after being accused of stealing a wrist watch owned by a foreign passenger.
OTS chief Undersecretary Ma-o Aplasca said the arrest came following the complaint of a Chinese national who claimed that he lost his wristwatch while undergoing screening.
He identified the arrested screening officer as Valeriano Diaz Ricaplaza, 31.
Ricaplaza at first denied that he took the watch, but a review of the closed-circuit television (CCTV) revealed otherwise.
Ricapalaza is now under the custody of the police’s Aviation Security Group.