Let us stop being resilient

If we Filipinos want to make our lives better, we should stop being resilient. That’s how our officials have been insulting us by seeming to praise us. After we suffer natural or manmade calamities, they issue syrupy press statements lauding the resilience of the Filipino.

It is time for every Filipino to refuse being resilient because it gets incompetent public officials off the hook. We should instead just be hopping mad… so mad we won’t take crap anymore.

Unless we do that, it will be business as usual for them. We want them to adopt world class practices for things like running airports and managing airport accidents. We want them to do meticulous risk assessments and mitigation plans.

An aircraft skidding off the runway and blocking operations of NAIA’s single runway isn’t that unusual.  Because it has happened before, normal people expect their officials to prepare for such an event happening again.

In June 2013, a Cebu Pacific plane also went off the runway and kept the Davao International Airport closed for three days.  But as in the case of the Xiamen plane over the weekend, getting the plane out of the runway was a trial and error affair that should have taught CAAP officials some lessons.

The current officials will say that happened before their time. But CAAP should have institutional memory that lives on in operating manuals.

NAIA officials obviously had no idea what they were doing. This was made clear as they kept on setting and extending deadlines. They also didn’t have the right equipment ready.

An aviation expert observed in an exchange of email with me that “they were just using heavy metal plates to shore their jacks and other lifters to raise the aircraft that was probably close to 70 tons. Just to haul these heavy plates and get them under the aircraft is a gigantic task as the plates are also very heavy.

“The proper equipment to use is composed of giant balloons and inflatables to raise the aircraft off the ground so they can insert the lifters and the aircraft can be ‘wheeled out’.

“NAIA used to borrow such equipment from the US Airforce in Clark. When Cebu Pacific got into a similar situation in Davao, I think they rented and imported this equipment from Singapore. This retrieval equipment is expensive, but considering the havoc and cost of closing a super busy airport, the money spent is worth it.”

And don’t say there is no money for that. If there is one thing CAAP and Manila International Airport Authority or MIAA has plenty of, it is money. CAAP just gave P3.22 billion to the national government supposedly as a dividend from a GOCC. MIAA gave P2.01 billion in dividends.

GOCCs providing essential public services like airports are not meant to remit surplus cash to the national treasury. They are not the BIR. They are expected to deliver the services they are meant to deliver. That seems obvious, but our bureaucrats can’t get the concept into their skulls.

Allow me now to share the post of a business reporter on Facebook as she tried so hard to be resilient last weekend while she anxiously waited for her young son to return from his first long trip to the US.

“Unbelievable! Eva Air’s Taipei to Manila flight was cancelled Friday morning. Flight was rescheduled Saturday afternoon. Relieved to hear my son made it back to the Philippines.

“However, he called at 9:15 p.m. Saturday not from NAIA, but from Clark. At 2 a.m. Sunday, they are still inside the aircraft. Imagine that, five hours!

“And it gets better: the pilot just announced that they will return to Taipei!!!!”

And they did return to Taipei.

I think that’s ridiculous. Given that DOTr has declared a dual airport strategy between NAIA and Clark, Clark is presumably ready with facilities and personnel including immigration and customs officers.

Given NAIA’s sad state of congestion, all airlines like EVA Air should by now have procedures and facilities they can call upon in a hurry at Clark for emergencies like this.

I asked a seasoned local aviation man if other airports abroad prepare for something like this accident.

The answer: “Yes there are manuals and standards for rescue and retrieval instituted by ICAO and all our airports are tuned up for this as far as standard and procedures. The failure of our airports to operate according to standards is due to lack of or defective equipment.”

The airman then recalled “When the same thing happened in Davao to Cebu Pacific, the ambulance was not functioning and so with one of the firetrucks. Good no one was injured and there was no fire. Davao was closed for almost three days because they had to look for the inflatables and balloons.

“None of these are surprising, Boo. After that Davao incident, I passed by the office of the assistance. GM and pointed out these defects and he admitted they were like that since a year before the incident.”

The accident revealed government was in a coma. In the midst of the chaos, Xiamen Air and other airlines managed to have 61 “recovery” flights land without the knowledge of MIAA. The control tower is under CAAP and no plane can land unless it allows it. Was CAAP undermining MIAA? Both are under DOTr and lead agencies for the crisis.

All MIAA can do is complain that the recovery flights caused problems with gate assignments further delaying the boarding and disembarking of other flights. This is plainly government failure. This is Tugade’s command responsibility.

Of course, Tugade came out with his congratulatory press release about how well the crisis was managed.

Incompetence happens because the citizens are forgiving… have short memories… and too resilient.

And let’s not get started with the floods and traffic jams which we are all taking in resiliently too.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco.