DFA: No Pinoy passenger in Malaysian Airlines plane

MANILA, Philippines - There were no Filipinos among the passengers of the Malaysian Airlines that went missing yesterday over Vietnam, the Department of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.

Malaysia Airlines said people from 14 nationalities were among the 227 passengers, including at least 152 Chinese, 38 Malaysians, 12 Indonesians, six Australians and three Americans. It also said a Chinese infant and an American infant were on board.

China’s Xinhua news agency said two Chinese passengers missed the flight.

Meanwhile, Department of National Defense (DND) spokesman Peter Paul Galvez said the Armed Forces of the Philippines was ordered to help search for the Beijing-bound flight “in the spirit of humanity,” an abs-cbnnews.com report said.

“The Secretary of National Defense has ordered the AFP to join in the search and rescue operations for the missing Malaysian Airlines aircraft under the possibility or assumption that said flight MH370 may have veered off its path and entered Philippine territory,” he said.

Three naval ships and one aircraft have been deployed to explore some areas of the West Philippine Sea and Palawan where the plane might have crashed, the abs-cbnnews.com report said.

“The AFP Western Command, under the direction of the Chief of Staff of the AFP, has dispatched an aircraft to conduct search of the southwestern area of Palawan and its surrounding waters in the West Philippine Sea. Likewise, naval vessels have been tasked to join the search,” Galvez said.

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said it is closely coordinating with its counterpart in Vietnam for search and rescue operations.

“We would be monitoring the development,” PCG spokesman Commander Armand Balilo said.

But he said the location where the aircraft was last recorded was reportedly far from the Philippines.

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) said the missing Malaysian aircraft did not enter the Philippine air space or make contact with air traffic controllers in Manila.

Balilo said the PCG has a “hotline” to the Vietnamese National Maritime Police (NMP)’s operations center “so we could call each other if there is any development.”

The hotline was established last year during a visit by Vietnam defense minister General Phung Quang Thanh to the PCG headquarters.

Malaysian airlines have been given over-flight clearance for their winter schedules from October 2013 to March 29, this year, according to documents approved by CAAP deputy director general Capt. John Andrews. – Pia Lee-Brago, Rudy Santos, Evelyn Macairan