Cup noodle

From high-tech Japan, where transport schedules are followed down to specific seconds, my welcome back to home sweet home was an announcement on my Air Nippon Airways flight, which had left Tokyo on time, that landing in Manila would be delayed by about half an hour because of congestion at the NAIA.

Stepping out of the aircraft, there was a gap between the plane and the passenger tube, which let in the noontime air and allowed it to swirl like a vacuum. So a blast of hot air was the first thing that greeted passengers setting foot on the Philippines.

The heat was like a welcome to hell, reinforced by another half-hour slog through the snaking lines at the immigration counter. The actual processing per person was quick enough at just two minutes, but I counted only about 15 people manning the counters. There just weren’t enough personnel. Those long lines reminded me of the Kabul airport a few months after the US bombed Afghanistan in retaliation for 9/11.

All flight arrival schedules are known to the NAIA management. How hard is it to station more personnel during those peak periods? Will the government ever settle the personnel problem in NAIA immigration?

President Duterte should show his anger at the officials in charge. While crawling along to the counters, I heard several Filipinos grumbling that they thought he would do better than the previous administration. Yet there we were, Pinoys and foreigners alike, looking like limp soba noodles, and it was happening under his watch.

There were persons at the arrival area holding placards welcoming delegates to the various meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. As ASEAN chair during its 50th anniversary, the Philippines is hosting numerous ministerial meetings throughout the year, but I guess we put our best foot forward only for the recent summit. Those lines at the NAIA 3 arrival were hardly the best welcome to the visitors.

Japanese and those who have lived for some time in Japan would also have noticed that Filipinos do not make way for those in a hurry when using escalators and the occasional walkalator. We just stand in the middle and block the entire line.

In Japan, those who want to be stationary on such conveyances stay on the left, leaving the right side open. There are similar systems in Washington and other cities, although the stationary side in some places is the right.

We have no control over summer temperature and of course it’s unfair to compare Philippine facilities with those in wealthy Japan, where I swiftly cleared immigration on both arrival and departure at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport.

But you don’t have to be a wealthy nation to improve procedures, promote efficiency and instill civic discipline.

It helps to study what people need, and respond to those needs as well as possible. Our problem is that when planning public infrastructure, the prime consideration is often not the needs of the public but the kickbacks for those in charge.

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The NAIA Terminal 3 is just one of the many examples of such projects. Bogged down in a corruption scandal, it was a white elephant for several years.

At least the terminal is now in use, with billionaire industrialist Andrew Tan even contributing a walkway to his hotel and entertainment complex straight from the airport so passengers need not slog through the traffic-choked airport road.

Except for that blast of hot air on arrival and the long wait at immigration, Terminal 3 is in fact much improved and looks like a modern airport. My departure on May 1 was hassle-free, although perhaps that was because immigration was still on red alert for the ASEAN summit.

On my return I checked out the toilet and it was clean, with enough water and working flush. A cleaning woman welcomed passengers with a typically Pinoy cheerful grin.

Even the original NAIA Terminal 1 looks much better. The NAIA is a long way from the world’s best airports, several of which are in this part of Asia. With more effort and investment, the NAIA can still be better.

Unfortunately for us, too many individuals see the government as a milking cow for personal enrichment. Public service works best when treated like a private business that meets specific demands. In such cases, both the business owner and customers profit.

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In Yokohama I visited the Cup Noodle Museum. Yes, there is such a place, and it’s operated by instant noodle giant Nissin Foods Corp.

The story of the company says a lot about the ethic that drives Japan. Momofuku Ando, born in Japan-controlled Taiwan who later relocated to Osaka and chose Japanese citizenship, developed the first instant noodles, chicken flavored, to meet the needs of the Japanese masses as the country recovered from World War II.

In 1958 at age 48, after many months of trial and error with little sleep, Ando came out with the first “Chikin Ramen.” Although more expensive than the average bowl of soba or udon, the ease of preparing instant ramen made the product a hit. Ando later introduced “use by” dates and “fill to” instructions in his products to guarantee quality.

After observing how Americans prepared the instant noodles, Ando began improving his product’s packaging. He designed a waterproof polystyrene container, smaller at the bottom, and put freeze-dried flavoring and condiments in packets. The cup noodle was born in 1971.

In July 2005, Ando launched his noodles into space, with the zero-gravity “Space Ram” – in soy sauce, miso, curry and pork broth flavors – brought aboard the US space shuttle Discovery by female Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi.

Ando, who reportedly ate chicken ramen almost daily, died in 2007 at the age of 96. By 2009, industry estimates showed that global instant noodle servings had reached 98 billion.

With such innovators, and with strong national discipline, it’s little wonder that Japan recovered so spectacularly from a nuclear holocaust.

Ando’s cup noodle journey is a validation of the formula for business success, which is doing well by doing good.

The formula should also work for government service.