What's happening at our airports is a disaster, and it's not just the welfare of our unfortunate overseas workers who have been victimized that I am talking about.
(Before anything else, let me say this. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that there are plenty of bullets waiting to be planted in the luggage of unsuspecting travelers. Where did these bullets come from? Is there no way for these bullets to be traced? Don't we keep a registry of bullets, including make and model details? Are unregistered bullets in the hundreds or thousands, meaning plenty more are left to be gleefully planted to welcome tourists all over the world?)
Talk about kick starting the tourism industry. What just happened will, instead, kick the industry in its knees (or some other sensitive body part), and make it crash down to potentially irrecoverable levels. Especially if the administration doesn't do something quick and drastic about it, as seems to be the attitude currently being conveyed by spokesperson Coloma.
Cannot government-hood understand the shockwave of fear that this news brought around the world? The day after another news story came out this week, I was accosted in Jakarta about it and asked what I felt. I hadn't really been paying attention to it, thinking it was an old story I might have stumbled upon and vaguely remembered, but as the details came out, and the fears of the Indonesian resident who was thinking of traveling to Manila were expressed, the implications became clear.
Of course, I wouldn't want to enter a place where I could be shaken down by cops. Especially if I didn't know anyone there. Why would I risk my vacation plans, (much more my liberty and sanity) on going to a banana republic? The sentiments of Manila's future visitor were totally understandable.
(And on the side, what was I the loyal nationalistic Filipino about to do? Pooh-pooh the situation, calm the fears of the future visitor, and encourage them to visit our warm, lovely country populated with the friendliest people on earth? I was in a quandary.)
The other tragedy here is this. We are barely surviving in the war against terrorism. And yet, here we are, already crippled from using our police force and anti-terrorism crack squad against incoming tourists slash terrorists, because of this nutty scheme hatched by greedy airport police.
The next time some real terrorist is caught with bullets in the airport, there's a ready defense for him or her. She's going to claim she was framed by airport security, and targeted because of her, perhaps, nationality or ethnic origin. Then the public will be overwhelmingly supportive of the terrorist, and pressure will mount to let her go. My crystal ball says that at end of the day, terrorist goes scot free, laughing all the way to her secret cell.
Immediate action needs to be taken here. The government should temporarily suspend all those officers who have accused travelers of hiding bullets in their luggage, and re-assign new ones to take over these duties.
There are plenty of tips circulating about how to handle findings of bullets. Some of the sensible ones I've read include: Implement new policies on taking screen shots of x-rays, have cctv cameras (that are working!) targeted on the x-ray machine areas, and scrupulously follow protocol whenever there's a suspicious object found in luggage.
Above all, get to the bottom of this mystery. We already garnered the worst airport in the world award. From there, there was supposedly no way to go but up. Or so I thought. Now, it looks we're about to descend to new depths, if nothing is done about this. As my sarcastic friends love saying, "award"!