Who's grabbing NAIA security business?

Corruption caused the Philippines to be the world’s fifth hungriest nation. Poverty worsened 38 percent with the Arroyo admin’s immoderate greed. Executive, legislative, judicial and local officials collude to steal tax money, depriving people of education and health care that should outfit for gainful work. Or, they grab mature businesses, driving workers out of jobs and mortgaged homes. Jocjoc Bolante’s theft of P728 million in farm grants for the admin’s 2004 election is an example of the first. What’s happening at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) is of the second.

Someone high up is lusting after the private airline security business at the country’s premiere airport. That’s why admin hit men are misusing their power to kick out a legitimate businessman from there.

For years a dozen airlines have been tapping Security & Safety Corp. of the Philippines (SSCP) to guard their hangars and offices. The contracts are strictly private between airlines and SSCP, under usual terms of right pay for good work. Airline managers can’t trust regular airport security to handle the job. Ninoy Aquino’s killing at the tarmac in 1983 and Jun Lozada’s abduction at the arrival terminal last Feb. show why.

Last Sept. NAIA security boss Angel Atutubo announced he was revoking SSCP’s accreditation due to “abuses by its personnel.” Tony Maniwang, agency owner, was surprised to read about it only in the papers. He has received no complaint from any airline-clients, certainly none from Atutubo. There had been frequent reports of abuses by airport security under Atutubo, but not by SSCP guards.

Maniwang wrote NAIA management on Sept. 23 to clarify the news items and ask if it had any adverse findings about his firm. It gave no reply, in breach of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards that requires public officials to act on inquiries within 10 days. Notably the NAIA is under the Dept. of Transportation and Communications. The DOTC top brass too is notorious for ignoring the Code and the Anti-Red Tape Law. In the case of the anomalously built NAIA Terminal-3, Asian Emerging Dragons Corp. wrote the DOTC five times in five months about legal concerns. Silence. In the overpriced $330-million NBN-ZTE deal, telcos and the press requested copies of the public contract that Gloria Arroyo caused to be signed in Apr. 2007. Again, silence.

On Nov. 5, one Atty. Melvin A. Matibag told ten airline managers to report to him at 3 p.m. the same day. He wanted to discuss “the anticipated cancellation” of SSCP’s accreditation for “various violations.” Six showed up; two insisted they had no hitch with SSCP’s work; whereupon Matibag allegedly sneered he had clout to scrap accreditations anytime at will.

Aghast, the airline officers realized at once that NAIA wants SSCP out so it can impose on them a security firm of its choice. And they have a sneaking suspicion which firm it is, the one long murmured to be barreling its way in via strong connections.

Last weekend a Japanese spouse of a Filipina reportedly was arrested at the NAIA for attempting to bring out P1 million cash. The news item was anaesthetized. It turns out that x-ray security personnel who report directly to Atutubo took P38,000 cash from the currency smuggler’s billfold and another P400,000 from his trolley bag. They also shook him down for more cash inside the toilet, of all places. NAIA is trying to kill the story, as with other incidents of theft at x-ray machines, perhaps because it can get in the way of kicking out SSCP.

*      *      *

Hot logs still litter the slopes of Northern Sierra Madre. Woodcutters are trying to sneak the contraband past forest guards. Each month or so, the guards are able to seize 500,000 board feet of timber floating down Abuan River in Ilagan, Isabela. That’s equivalent to 40 ten-wheeler trucks of logs.

There’s more where it came from. Gov. Grace Padaca had discovered about seven million board feet of timber cut since summer. She offered the small woodcutters work as haulers to provincial impounding lots. But they preferred to hold out, abetted by mayors and financiers who equip them with chainsaws. They know they’re committing crime. But having grown up into the trade of denuding forests with “permits” from politicos in the furniture trade, they believe they can get away with it.

Another bunch of crooks are bus drivers who, whether or not high on meth, drive like they own the roads. Last weekend three of them killed 16 persons in three separate collisions, injured five dozen others, and put out a million holiday commuters. And there are 7,000 other potential killers out there whose driving skills and frame of mind have not been checked at all.

For decades the government has been issuing professional drivers licenses without real tests. It even let one bus firm hire ex-convicts in the name of charity, though below the legal minimum wage. Conveniently it forgot that Philippine prisons do not rehabilitate criminals but make them more homicidal than ever.

Polite society deems it wrong to express “politically incorrect” views like this about illegal loggers and road killers. That’s why we’re in such a mess. In disciplined but democratic lands, lawbreakers are simply jailed, whether rich or poor. And citizens live happily ever after.

*      *      *

E-mail: [email protected]