WHEN you pile stupidity onto corruption, incompetence and arrogance, you’ve entered the rarefied world of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, consistently voted among the world’s most hated airports.
Here, bullets have been known to miraculously appear in luggage, giving airport officials the opportunity to shake down travelers, most of whom can be intimidated into parting with their cash to avoid trouble.
Now and again, parts of the ceiling have been known to collapse, injuring a hapless passenger or two. And here, airport officials proudly point to clean toilets with running water as a major achievement.
Small wonder that in such an environment, the airport’s general manager, a distant relation to President Aquino, is exempted from the periodic performance-based assessments that are normally applied to top executives of private corporations and government agencies.
General manager Jose Angel Honrado, who has been on the receiving end of demands that he resign over the mess he has made of the country’s premier airport, has consistently refused to go. “If every time there is a problem, you ask the official to resign, then you are looking for a problem every month,” he said by way of explanation.
The latest feather in Honrado’s cap was a five-hour power outage at Terminal 3 that plunged the airport into darkness overnight on April 2, forced the cancellation of more than 80 flights and stranded about 14,000 passengers from one airline alone.
Exhausted passengers sprawled on the floor as check-in counters and luggage carousels shut down. Long queues formed outside the terminal as entrances were closed until power was restored.
Hauled before the Senate to answer questions about the power outage at the airport, Honrado said the airport’s standby generator that supplied backup power to the terminal’s vital areas, including departure entrances, screening equipment, the baggage handling system, as well as some areas in the check-in lobby and immigration counters, had failed because of a defective battery.
For this, the airport manager blamed, not poor maintenance, but sheer bad luck.
Encouraged by Honrado’s insightful assessment, one unnamed airport official suggested to Naia-3 manager Octavio Lina that they bring in a feng shui expert to take away the bad luck that has plagued airport operations.
The official said the feng shui expert could identify what was wrong with the terminal’s design. Local shamans might also be called in to exorcise the evil spirits that resided at the airport.
Incredibly, Lina was quoted as saying he might suggest the idea to Honrado for approval, in the process adding an extra dose of foolishness to the already toxic Naia mix.
The truth is, the root of our bad luck is having a President who does not hold his managers accountable for their poor performance because they are his friends, allies, classmates or distant relatives.
Perhaps the local shamans should be sent to exorcise the Palace instead—and the rest of the evil spirits at the airport will follow.