JV Ejercito bats for railway-linked airports for convenient public access
January 04, 2023
The sudden fallout of the Philippine air
traffic control system has opened a can of worms, putting the country’s
territorial integrity and the safety of thousands of passengers at risk,
Senator Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito warned on Wednesday.
“The incident posed a serious national
security concern where the territorial integrity of the country might have been
jeopardized and the vulnerability of the country’s air navigation system
exposed,” the lawmaker said.
Following the incident, Ejericto filed Senate
Resolution No. 400, directing the Senate Committee on Public Services to
conduct an investigation on the said fiasco and produce recommendations to
strengthen the country’s aviation industry.
“It is imperative to inquire into the state
and integrity of the country’s air traffic management system for us to be
appraised of the need to upgrade and modernize the system in order to ensure
that similar incidents will be averted,” he said.
The Air Traffic Management Center (ATMC) of
the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), the country’s main international
airport, was downed by a power outage on New Year’s Day, resulting in the
cancellation, delay, and diversion of around 3,000 inbound and outbound flights
throughout the country.
Cebu Pacific alone was forced to cancel a
total of 259 flights on January 1 and about 75 flights for January 2.
The incident affected more than 65,000
international and domestic passengers and around 3,000 overseas Filipino
workers..
Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said
the fiasco was caused by issues in the ATMC’s power supply and a power surge
that followed the outage.
For Ejercito, the fiasco can be traced back to
the ATMC’s outdated system, which is a decade behind the air traffic management
systems of neighboring countries. .
“Air passengers’ safety and well-being were
also put at risk due to the seemingly outdated system that is being used by the
ATMC of the country’s main airport facility,” Ejercito said.
The lawmaker said the fiasco endangers the
country’s efforts towards economic recovery, especially in the areas of
business and tourism.
“It is alarming and disturbing that this kind of
glitch – loss of communication, radio, radar, and internet access – can happen
in the country’s main airport, affecting not only the safety of airline
passengers, but also of businesses, national security, and the country’s image
to the world,” Ejercito said.
