The shutdown of our entire air traffic control system on the first day of the year is an absolute embarrassment. It is a blow to all efforts to revive our tourism industry.
There is no final explanation yet for what happened. We will probably get the official version sometime next week – in time for the twin legislative inquiries called for the purpose of determining what happened.
When our airspace was emptied for hours after the air traffic control system failed, we incurred more than just inconvenience. Planes well on their way to our airports were turned back and ordered to return to their airports of origin. About 60,000 passengers on their way home or off to return to their jobs abroad were dislocated. It will take a long time for international confidence in our transport systems to be restored.
As soon as the air traffic control system collapsed, political intrigue and irresponsible conspiracy theories flew thick and fast.
Some peddled – evidence-free – the outlandish theory that a hostile power hacked our air traffic control system and inflicted failure. We could trip stupidly into war with such irresponsible conspiracy-mongering.
To be sure, any failure in our systems has a national security angle. But this conspiracy theory takes things beyond reasonable bounds.
Others, also without evidence, hurried to put one or the other partisan angle as the calamity wore on. Some were quick to blame the previous administration for failure to keep our air traffic control system at tip-top shape. It turns out the system we have in place is relatively new – or at least far from obsolescent.
Still others have raised the theory that funds for the upkeep of our air transport control system were somehow diverted to “beautification projects” at the NAIA. Subsequent investigation showed this claim to be baseless.
At least one advocacy group, Kilig-Lakbay Pilipinas, pinned the blame on Transport Secretary Jaime Bautista and called for his resignation. Kilig-Lakbay describes itself as a “group promoting travel safety in the Philippines.”
The group’s executive director, Padjo A. Valdenor, was all praises for former transport secretary Art Tugade and quite critical of the sitting secretary. He accuses Bautista of quickly assigning blame rather than solving operational problems. The sharp position adopted by this group – asking for Bautista’s resignation – is apparently in reaction to some of the preliminary statements made by DOTr spokesmen attributing some shortcoming on the part of previous transport officials.
At any rate, the hearings scheduled at both the House of Representatives and the Philippine Senate should bring some clarity to what really caused this massive fiasco in our air transport sector. This should happen if the legislators are motivated by honest curiosity rather than vested interests as in the case of the seriously misleading Senate inquiry conclusions on the matter of sugar importation.
To date, statements made by responsible transport officials narrow down the possible cause of the fiasco to improper equipment maintenance or plain incompetence. We are told the uninterrupted power supply system (UPS) failed. After this, the backup UPS likewise failed. After that, our air traffic control system was plugged to the wrong outlet, frying it.
The only problem with this story of plain incompetence is that Meralco states no power outage happened in the airport area on the day the system failed.
‘Vegetable inflation’
The Philippine Statistics Authority reports inflation for the month of December inched up by a tenth of a percent over November’s numbers.
The new culprit on the block is something called “vegetable inflation.” Veggie prices have risen by 32.4 percent the past month, becoming a notable inflation-driver.
This is the first time I encounter the phrase “vegetable inflation.” I suppose no one else anywhere in the world uses that phrase. This is testament to the general failure of our agriculture.
The list of agricultural produce we import seems to grow by the day, beginning with rice then sugar then carrots, garlic and onions. The last few weeks, the busts made by our Bureau of Customs involve containers full of onions. Smuggling, of course, is merely symptomatic of a problem vastly more complex than failing air traffic control systems.
The subcategory of “vegetable inflation” ballooned last month obviously because of onion prices. At P600 per kilo, the vegetable is more expensive than the meat I put in my stews.
Unlike the case of the air traffic control system where the problem may be traced to the incompetence of one individual, no authoritative figure has come out to try and explain why onion prices have gone, in the words of a senior Department of Agriculture (DA) official, “out of control.”
Our economic managers are trying to convince us that our current bout with elevated inflation should have “peaked” and the next few months will see the rate decline. That optimistic assessment does not square with the assessment that vegetable prices are “out of control.”
The only DA policy initiative in this regard is to impose a Suggested Retail Price (SRP) on onions. The key word here is “suggested.” No one seems to be taking this “suggestion” – least of all the importers who persist in attempting to smuggle the vegetable.
Unless we declare a state of national food calamity, there is no legal way government may dictate prices. Should government insist on doing that, we will certainly face even more severe shortages.
The SRP is a silly gimmick formerly used only by the Department of Trade and Industry. Now the DA has joined the pathetic show.