EDITORIAL - Deeper probe needed

These travelers are either unaware of current events or are deliberately asking for trouble. Or else those involved in the bullet-planting extortion scheme at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport are still at it.

Since last Sunday, three more travelers have been apprehended at the NAIA after the security scanner showed bullets in their luggage, according to airport officials. Unlike in previous cases, all three were allowed to board their flights. But they also denied carrying the bullets. One, a US citizen who was held briefly at the NAIA detention facility, said he noticed a group of people including porters who blocked his path upon his arrival at the airport. That might have been when the bullet was planted, he said. His story must be pursued by airport authorities.

Last week the National Bureau of Investigation filed charges in connection with the scheme against six airport personnel – two members of the Office for Transportation Security and four from the Philippine National Police Aviation Security Group. But the charges stemmed only from a single case – the one involving American missionary Lane Michael White, who testified before the Senate about the bullet-planting scheme. White and his stepmother narrated how NAIA security personnel demanded P30,000 to let him off the hook, allegedly warning him that the price could increase to P80,000 if his case went up to higher authorities.

Who those higher authorities might be is anybody’s guess. The NBI, echoing earlier statements of President Aquino, announced that the extortion scheme did not appear to be the handiwork of a syndicate. Ranking airport officials were also spared from charges.

Amid criticism of the NBI findings, particularly from an overseas Filipino worker who lost her job as a result of the bullet planting, the Department of Justice announced that authorities were still looking into a bigger operation.

The latest cases should spur a deeper probe into the scandal. And a wider net must be cast, so that prosecution will not be confined merely to minnows.