Airport execs liable for Manila's New Year’ Day fiasco: Senator Poe

Sen Grace Poe (second from right), in this Feb 6 photo, is joined by her fellow senators during the inspection of the Air Traffic Management Center of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines in Pasay City. - PDI

MANILA (Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network): Airport officials may be held liable for years of neglect that led to the glitch on New Year’s Day resulting in the shutdown of the Philippine airspace and 600 cancelled flights, Sen Grace Poe said on Monday (Feb 20).

At a press briefing, Poe, chair of the Senate committee on public services, said the dilapidated state of the Air Traffic Management Center (ATMC) of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) reflected the incompetence of concerned officials.

“This started from several administrations. The fact that they were allowed to operate without having proper maintenance in the last three years is itself a violation, is incompetence or negligence on the part of the management of CAAP itself and not just individuals,” she said.

With no immediate solution in sight, Poe expressed concern that the Jan 1 “technical glitch,” which inconvenienced about 65,000 passengers and caused airline losses of up to P100 million, could happen again.

Poe made the statement as she indicated that her committee was releasing this week or next week the report on its inquiry into the New Year’s Day glitch and after she and other Senate leaders and transportation officials inspected ATMC facilities in Pasay City on Feb 6.

“[A glitch] can really still happen. Inasmuch as we don’t want to scare the public, but right now, [Caap is] more focused on [addressing] the situation because it already happened,” she said.

“In fact, they already procured a new UPS (uninterruptible power supply) system but they are still trying to figure out the timing on when they are going to switch to the new UPS because when they switch there, they will need some downtime, which means flights getting delayed,” the lawmaker added.

Poe urged CAAP to give prior notice to the public “way ahead of time” before it switches to the new UPS system, and to coordinate with Clark International Airport or Mactan Cebu International Airport for possible diversion of flights.

According to Poe, accountability on the ill-maintained ATMC would cover officials from as early as 2009, which also led Caap to incur debts and end in court suits against its maintenance provider.

“Many people can be held accountable here on various degrees. Remember that this administration just started in June, and the maintenance was not done for the past several years,” she said.

The third-party maintenance provider, Thales-Sumitomo joint venture, has agreed to undertake maintenance work on the ATMC after the Department of Transportation executed a separate commitment to pay its claims of up to P986.6 million.

“[T]hey are making an arrangement for them to bill separately for the immediate maintenance that is needed and then we will honor our debts for the past services and equipment that they provided,” she said.

According to the senator, CAAP also came up with its own investigation report which blamed the Jan. 1 technical glitch on three factors: the “poor design” of the engineering system; the lack of proper system maintenance; and its “incapacitated” personnel.

But even Caap’s own report raises more questions, according to Poe.

“In the report that they submitted... the circuit breaker itself was damaged. We saw that when we did an inspection. But if the connection was not secure, there will definitely be a power outage or oversupply of power,” she said.

Poe noted that CAAP did some “Band-Aid” repairs to address the damage to its UPS, which officials were not able to inspect supposedly because of restrictions imposed by the agency’s maintenance contract with private firm Sumitomo Corp.

The ATMC’s automatic voltage regulator has also been out of service since August, Poe said.

“Their protocols state that repairs on defective equipment should be done within eight hours. To this day it has not been repaired, and they have not given a reason why; maybe they are waiting for spare parts to arrive,” she surmised.

Poe also lamented that foregone repairs that could have cost Caap about P100,000 led to millions of pesos in losses due to canceled or delayed flights.

She clarified that CAAP’s and her own committee’s investigation reports still did not include findings on the liability of ATMC personnel.

“The focus of our investigation is really what caused the glitch and how we will be able to prevent that,” she said.