Deputy Minority Leader and Bagong Henerasyon Rep. Bernadette Herrera on Thursday urged the House of Representatives to conduct its own investigation into the power outage and technical glitch that crippled the country’s flight operations on New Year’s Day.
Herrera said the probe is essential in determining and addressing the issues that led to the temporary shutdown of the Philippine airspace, in order to avoid a repeat of the incident that affected over 65,000 domestic and international passengers, and effectively put the country to shame.
“There is clearly something wrong here, and we must get to the bottom of it so we can prevent a repeat of that awful day. This must not happen again,” Herrera said.
The party-list lawmaker issued the statement as she filed on Wednesday a resolution urging the appropriate House committee to conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, on the supposed technical glitch that started in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), the country’s busiest airport.
Herrera said that aside from coming up with possible immediate remedial legislation, the proposed legislative probe should also focus on determining who was liable for the NAIA mishap.
“So far, no one has owned up to this unfortunate and embarrassing incident. Those responsible for this fiasco must be held accountable,” Herrera said.
Herrera said it is also imperative for Congress to look into the proposal to modernize and rehabilitate the country’s air traffic management system to prevent a potential disaster in the future.
The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines reported that its equipment was outdated, and that a modernized air traffic management system was already proposed to the national government prior to the
NAIA traffic outage incident.