PH gov’t starts probe of New Year...

PAGE 1

House good government and accountability committee chair, submitted a similar measure.

The Senate will hold its own hearing on Jan. 12 under Sen. Grace Poe’s public services committee. On Monday, Poe said the possibility that the New Year’s Day incident was an act of sabotage or a cyberattack should not be ruled out since CAAP had yet to explain the power outage that downed its communications, navigation, and surveillance/air traffic management (CNS/ATM) system.

Poe said that aside from airport and transportation officials, National Security Adviser Clarita Carlos and representatives from the Department of Information and Communications Technology and the National Security Council had been invited to the hearing as well.

Representatives of SumitomoThales, the joint venture that provided the CNS/ATM system, were also set to attend.

Numerous theories

“There are many theories (why the incident happened). That’s why we would like to hear it straight from them,” Poe said in a television interview.

“We want to know what really happened. I was talking to (individuals)… connected with one of those that supply the maintenance. They were saying, ‘Don’t rule out a cyberattack for this or sabotage.’ Because until now there’s really no categorical answer to what caused the power outage,” she added.

She said it was “unfortunate” that the government had failed to pursue a project that would have unified the country’s military and commercial air navigation system.

“When we were supposed to upgrade the system for the air traffic control, there was supposed to be one system that would merge both our national security and defense, as well as our commercial airspace. But unfortunately, that was not done,” Poe lamented.

“Our military [has its] own system to determine if there’s a violation of our airspace, but it’s not connected with the CAAP system,” she said.

Asked whether Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista should quit his post over the incident, Poe said: “Absolutely not.”

“First of all, Bautista was just sworn into office and this is a long-standing situation,” she noted.

“This didn’t just happen over- night,” she added. “Obviously, it stems from many years of transactions, maintenance, and upgrades.”

Poe said her committee had also invited former Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, who earlier denied allegations that he had diverted a P13-billion allotment for the upgrading of the CNS/ATM system to NAIA beautification projects.

“(We’re) not just singling out Secretary Tugade. This is a chance for him also to correct the impression that it was during his time that all these things may have been neglected,” she said.

Wake-up call

For Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, the airport fiasco should be a “wake-up call” for the government to strengthen CAAP and improve the country’s air traffic navigation system.

He said he had filed Senate Bill No. 1003 as “part of the efforts to ensure the safety, reliability, and efficiency of air transport in our country.” u PAGE 3

Under the measure, the secretaries of the Department of Tourism and the Department of National Defense would become members of the CAAP governing board.