House urged to look into air travel safety

MANILA, Philippines –  Two Mindanao lawmakers urged the House of Representatives to inquire into safety issues in airports, airplanes and in the aviation industry in general.

In a resolution, Reps. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro City and his brother Maximo, who represents the party-list group Abante Mindanao, said safety questions about air travel here have remained unresolved since 2007.

In November that year, the two said the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has downgraded the country’s aviation safety from Category 1 to Category 2 “for failure to provide safety oversight of its carrier operators in accordance with the safety oversight standards of the International Civil Aviation Authority.”

The downgrading has led to “certain restrictions of flights from the country to the United States and prevents local carriers from increasing flights to the same country,” they said.

The Rodriguez brothers noted that in 2008, Congress enacted a law to improve the aviation industry by creating the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) and giving it an initial fund of P50 billion.

“Despite this support from Congress, the country is still in Category 2 and is still far from being upgraded to Category 1,” they said.

They said CAAP officials “must work harder to improve the aviation industry in order for us to be upgraded to Category 1 because there are certain opportunities that the country loses by being labeled as Category 2 in terms of boosts in tourism and the corresponding loss of income.”

For his part, Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez said Philippine Airlines could not increase its Manila-US-Canada flights because of the country’s failure to improve air travel safety standards.

“The issue principally involves our weakness in navigational and safety measures,” he said.

Suarez said a navigational gadget installed at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport had conked out at least twice in recent months.

He urged the CAAP and the Department of Transportation and Communications to now address air travel safety issues, which he said have adversely affected local tourism.