Outage again at the NAIA

DURING another long weekend, on another start of the month, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport was hit by another power outage. Lasting nearly eight hours, the outage hit the NAIA Terminal 3 early on Monday, May 1 stranding thousands of passengers as dozens of flights were canceled or delayed.

As of Monday night, May 1, initial inspection indicated that the outage was due to faulty electrical wiring or a short circuit. The outage occurred exactly five months after another power-related problem shut down not just the entire NAIA but also Philippine airspace. This was on Jan. 1 this year, when a circuit breaker that failed to work caused two uninterruptible power supply units of the NAIA’s Communications, Navigation and Surveillance / Air Traffic Management System to bog down. With the UPS unable to come on stream when needed, the CNS / ATM was paralyzed.

Over 300 flights were disrupted and about 65,000 travelers were stranded at the NAIA for over nine hours before the system came back to life and flights gradually resumed. New UPS units have since been procured. A promise to make heads roll after an investigation is completed, however, has not materialized.

On The Contrary

Antonio P. ContrerAs

AT the outset, and lest people misconstrue my point, it should be stressed that citizens have the right to express their dissatisfaction with the government. Freedom of speech is a fundamental right accorded to us by the Constitution. It is an inherent element of any democratic system.

Yet, many people seem to focus too much on their individual rights, or the benefit of their own groups, without thinking about their responsibilities to the greater community and society. Worse, they delude themselves into thinking, or even intentionally appropriate the line of reasoning, that they are doing this to advance some collective good.

Democracy is not just about freedoms and rights. It is also about our duties. Many people forget that while citizens are sovereign, a responsible and rational exercise of our political rights is also fundamental in a democracy. A representative democracy such as ours depends

In September last year, a problem at the terminal’s power substation resulted in an hours-long outage that delayed at least 31 flights as airlines shifted to manual check-in and immigration processing slowed down. At the time, airport and transport officials vowed to address the problem to prevent its repeat.

In April 2016, the NAIA-3 was also hit by a fivehour outage that was blamed on one broken power generator. Power transmission had tripped briefly in the airport area in Pasay City. Power was restored within less than a minute, but electricity failed to kick in at the NAIA 3 because one of the 10 generators meant to service the main building did not work. This weekend outage canceled 82 domestic flights and delayed 79 international and local flights. The fiasco contributed to perceptions of incompetence on the part of the Aquino administration, with the general elections just weeks away. This was seven years ago. Will NAIA officials not only on the robustness of our democratic rituals such as elections, but on the quality of our participation in it, either indirectly when we vote, or more directly when we engage in political discourse, or take part in political activities.

Unfortunately, most citizens would rather defer to the actions of their elected representatives and those these officials appoint, instead of actively participating in politics. While our voter turnout is relatively high, the quality of the exercise of these rights is undermined not only by candidates who run not on the basis of platforms, but largely riding on the power of optics and narratives. More fatal to the pursuance of high-quality democracy is the fact that this kind of politics of image instead of substance is enabled by voter behavior. People vote less on the basis of the idea of a common good, but more on preferences that are formed from biases and even blind loyalties. We turn our politicians into brands to whom we have been fixated to patronize regardless of their performance, or the service they offer.

And later, a huge number of voters would, after the regular ever grasp the critical importance of uninterrupted electricity supply in the country’s premier gateway?

There wasn’t even a weather disturbance that might have affected the power supply at the NAIA

3 on Monday. Transport officials said they were not ruling out sabotage. Whatever the reason, it must be determined quickly so that it can be addressed ASAP. (Philstar.com)