A broken promise

MANILA, Philippines - I thought it would be an easy trip home for me last Saturday evening, October 29, from my speaking engagement at a cooperative summit in Zamboanga City. I was excited to head back to Manila, as I had promised my little daughter that I would take her to watch the show Peter Pan that same evening as a sort of father and daughter bonding trip. Until I found out that my PAL flight was horribly delayed from 6:50 p.m. to 7:50 p.m. and finally, 9 p.m.

And so, out of desperation not to break a promise to my child, I decided to ask the counters of other airlines which of their planes would be arriving earlier. I was immediately told by Air Philippines that their plane would be arriving at 7 p.m., which brightened up my day as I would only be a few minutes late to the show. I then paid an extra P5,000 just to be home early and enjoy some bonding time with my child. To make a long story short, the plane was also terribly delayed and we boarded at exactly 9 p.m. To make matters worse, the PAL plane also arrived at almost the same time, making me waste my P5,000 for the Air Phil ticket.

That night, all the airlines were delayed between 4 to 5 hours with the official reason that there was heavy airline traffic at the Ninoy Aquino Airports. If I could only share with you the exasperation and anger felt by all the passengers cramped up and waiting at the Zamboanga terminal, of which a third were foreign tourists, full of disdain to what was happening.

Now, as a civilian, always travelling alone, I could feel even more the frustrations felt by each and every passenger that night, just trying to come home. The question in my mind is, “what kind of outfit are we running here?” Is the problem the inadequacy of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines? CAAP personnel? which we created last year to precisely attend to the problem of inefficient air management? Is it the inefficient airline companies who promised us “on time service” which when they break, don’t even have the decency to inform their passengers, or at the very least, feed them in their hunger? Or is it the antiquated airports that we have in our country, some of which are rated the worst in the world, with some having long security lines outside and inside the terminals due to the lack of X-ray facilities or booths collecting “terminal fees”, which I’ve never seen or experienced in all my travels abroad.

I believe that the problem is all of the above. And as I come home at 11 in the evening, I heard my daughter asking me, “why didn’t you take me dada?”. All I could say was I’m sorry. Not just for my daughter, but for the tens of thousands who experience this everyday, without the government doing anything about it, regardless of who leads it.