New security threat at Cebu airport identified

CEBU CITY — A new security threat is getting officials at the Mactan Cebu International Airport worried.

It appears that wanton issuance of passes has resulted in at least a thousand people who have nothing to do with the airport gaining access to its various areas, including the restricted ones.

Even just a few of these passes falling into the wrong hands, like terrorists, can pose serious security risks to the airport, officials said.

Superintendent Elias Abad Jr., the chief of the Regional Aviation Security Office, who discovered the anomaly, immediately wrote airport manager Alfonso Alerre for prompt action.

Abad specifically asked Alerre for authority to check the background of some 1,100 people who have been issued passes despite their not having anything to do with airport operations.

Among these people are bodyguards, aides and friends of politicians and even members of the press whose passes allow them access even to supposedly restricted areas.

Aside from this more than a thousand passes issued to non-airport personnel, the airport has also issued no less than 6,000 other passes to airport, airline and concessionaire employees, some of whose employment are limited by contracts and may no longer be working at the airport.

Abad said that while aviation security has become more demanding and complicated in recent years, there are no clearcut policies at the airport to "completely sanitize" airport security.

To place the security risk in perspective, there are only about 600 airport personnel, about 700 from the airlines, and about 1,500 concession owners and employees or a total of about 2,800 people who can legitimately claim to need airport passes.

But the airport, aside from issuing at least 1,100 passes to supposed bodyguards, aides and friends of politicians, also issued a whooping 4,000 passes to contractual workers and on-the-job trainees, many of whom may no longer be at the airport but may still possess the airport passes.

That means a total of 5,100 passes circulating out there, any of which can easily fall into the wrong hands and used for wrong purposes.

"Airports are vulnerable targets of international terrorists," Abad said.

Under prevailing policy, the issuance of restricted area badges and passes is done by the airport ID and pass division. — Freeman News Service