MANILA — President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. on Friday apologized to passengers affected by the hundreds of delayed, cancelled, and diverted flights on New Year’s day due to a technical glitch in the system of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP).
“I’m sorry. We, of course, we have to apologize to our kababayans who, especially those who came from abroad dahil limitado ang kanilang bakasyon. Nawala yung dalawa, tatlong araw eh,” Marcos said in a press conference at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3.
Marcos came from a state visit to China.
“Alam naman natin, very valuable sa Pilipino ‘yung Christmas holiday. Kaya’t kami’y naghihingi — humihingi ng inyong paumanhin. Ngunit gagawin namin ang lahat na hindi na maulit ito,” he added
He said all forms of assistance have been given to the affected passengers during the ordeal.
“Hindi naman sila basta’t pinabayaan na lang at we left them to their own devices. But we try to support them in every way,” he said.
Before facing the media, Marcos was given a situation briefing by Transportation officials on what caused the aviation mess and what have been done to resolve the issue.
“Ang naging problema is not in the UPS (uninterruptible power supply) it’s in another, it was in another unit. It was a circuit breaker na somehow hindi niya naibaba ‘yung boltahe na pumapasok na kuryente kaya’t ‘yung UPS nakita masyadong mataas ‘yung boltahe na pumapasok, masisira mga makinarya nagsara. ‘Yun ang nangyari,” he noted
During the meeting, Marcos instructed transportation officials to make sure a similar incident will not happen again.
All equipment to ensure “future redundancies” should be secured, he said.
“Ang sinabi ko lang kay Sec. Jimmy is to make sure that we fast-track all of —whatever negotiations we have with our — with the equipment suppliers who can help us with the upgrades, who can help us with the upgrades for the software and the hardware of our equipment,” he said.
“At ‘yung mga UPS we did an emergency procurement and we are going to procure two units of UPS para mayroon tayong main at saka mayroon tayong backup,” he added.
He recognized the efforts of the transportation agencies for addressing the issue.
“I can say that considering how big the problem was, I think that our airport authorities, our Cabinet secretaries, and all those who were involved in returning the system back have done a reasonably good job at six hours is rather a short time considering how much needed to be done to get the system back up into working condition,” he said.
The Senate is set to hold an investigation into the fiasco.
Storya Ni Juan Official 