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The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines has taken responsibility for the January 1 airports shutdown that halted hundreds of flights and stranded thousands of passengers
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Director General Manuel A. Tamayo said CAAP is fully responsible for the outage of the Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management system
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In the Senate hearing on January 12 on the technical glitch, Tamayo vowed his agency will remain transparent in its dealings
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In the same hearing, former Transport Secretary Arthur Tugade said a P13 billion Japanese loan fund for the CNS-ATM system had not been diverted to other airport projects, as it’s the Japan International Cooperation Agency that was in charge of the fund
Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines director general Manuel Tamayo has taken full responsibility for the power supply outage that shut down the air traffic management system on New Year’s Day that grounded flights and affected thousands of passengers.
The CAAP chief made the admission during a Senate hearing on January 12, on the technical glitch that stopped all flights to and from Ninoy Aquino International Airport and several airports, including Clark International Airport and Mactan Cebu International Airport.
“On behalf of CAAP and DOTr, we again extend our sincerest apologies to all those who were inconvenienced and greatly affected by this circumstance, which is something we are not proud of,” Tamayo said at the Senate hearing on the shutdown.
“We take this as a lesson and we manifest to this honorable committee and fellow Filipinos that we take full responsibility and accountability for what happened. We commit to see through this ordeal and remain transparent in all our dealings and service to the Filipinos in ensuring that our skies are safe.”
In the same hearing, former Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade repudiated media reports that P13 billion of funds supposedly for the Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) were diverted to other projects at the airport.
“No funds were diverted because the CNS/ATM project is what we call a loan-funded project. It means the process (of using the funds) is administered by JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency),” Tugade explained in mixed English and Tagalog.
He clarified that loans from other countries undergo tedious processing before being released to contractors and are not to the executive agency. DOTr is the mother agency of CAAP.
“There’s a process when the payment will be released. Were the funds released to the DOTr? No, the funds were released to contractors,” he said.
