Poe says power outage at NAIA Terminal 3 caused by neglect, not sabotage
Senator Grace Poe said the eight-hour power outage at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 on Monday was not due to sabotage but neglect of the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA).
“I think this is connected to what they mentioned about the capacity of their backup power supply only being able to support only 30 percent. Now, the actual supply of energy or power in the airport and in the system is really outdated. Since more people are traveling now, the power supply will give in,” Poe told dzBB on Wednesday.
“There are several things I want to know from the audit of their electric system in 2017. What were the recommendations? Why are they not implemented not just in the current (NAIA) administration but in the previous ones? So what I can see here is that there really is neglect. In the past year, they (MIAA) did not request a generator to have a 100 percent backup. Why didn’t they say that?” added Poe, chairman of the Senate committee on public services.
“I think, because actually, even if no one tries to sabotage the operations something will definitely go wrong because they have many shortcomings. Even if there were no hitches in May 1 and January 1, you could see that the people are still crowded at the airport,” Poe said.
Poe was referring to the breakdown of the air traffic management system at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport that caused many passengers stranded on January 1.,
On Monday, around 40 flights at NAIA Terminal 3 were canceled due to a power outage that began 1:05 am.
Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said in an interview with CNN that they are not ruling out the possibility that the incident was caused by sabotage.
“We are not discounting the possibility that there might be sabotage. This is the reason why we have asked the other agencies to join," he said, referring to a committee of government agencies created to probe the incident.
The investigating committee will include Department of Transportation (DoTr), Office of Transport Security, MIAA, National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (Nica), National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Philippine National Police (PNP).
“Because this is the second time that it happened on a long weekend, I think you cannot really discount the possibility of having somebody do it to embarrass the government, or to prove that they have something that we should give into," he added.
Meanwhile, MIAA Senior Assistant General Manager Bryan Co told PTV that they would need P1 billion to be able to buy power generators.
“We’re looking at a possibility of around P1 billion for the 100 percent (power requirement) because we need to build something like a power plant for Terminal 3,” Co said.
Poe questioned why MIAA was only asking funds for the generators now, when they could have requested it in the previous budget hearing.
“From the very start, in the last budget hearing, if they had said they needed that (generators), we wouldn’t have refused them because the safety of the public would depend on it. But it isn’t part of their block of priorities,” she said over dzBB.
Poe said they could source the funds for the generators from unprogrammed funds or the revolving funds of NAIA.
“Maybe they just need a go-signal from COA (Commission on Audit) so they can use the funds for their needs now,” she said. Jaspearl Tan/DMS
