Mentally ill man manages to board plane in C. de Oro

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY — In what authorities consider a serious lapse in security, a mentally ill man was able to board a Philippine Airlines (PAL) plane bound for Manila at the Lumbia airport here Saturday.

Chief Inspector Rizalino Borladatan told The STAR that PAL and airport security personnel obviously failed to check if 30-year-old Apolinario Victoria was a legitimate passenger of PAL flight PR 184.

Victoria’s presence on the plane was discovered when Chief Superintendent Florante Baguio, Region 10 police director, was to take his seat but Victoria had occupied it.

Baguio immediately instructed the PNP aviation security force to apprehend Baguio and investigate how he was able to board the plane undetected.

Authorities suspect that he could have just walked across the tarmac from his house in nearby Barangay Palalan and joined the flock of passengers boarding the plane.

Due to the security breach, all passengers were asked to disembark as security personnel, along with K-9 dogs, inspected the aircraft.

Borladatan, however, refused to accept that it was a total security lapse, saying he has recommended that a perimeter fence be built to secure the airport.

Some two kilometers away from the southern tip of the airport’s runway is the Cagayan de Oro City jail, while a kilometer away from the northern tip is the House of Hope, where mentally ill persons are confined. Victoria was released from the House of Hope last January.

Local radio commentators had a field day criticizing airport authorities over the incident, expressing apprehension that had Victoria been a terrorist, worse things could have happened.

An x-ray machine was recently installed at the Lumbia airport to boost security as part of nationwide efforts to secure vital installations from terrorists.