Senator wants US aircraft landing at NAIA probed

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Imee Marcos has filed a resolution seeking an inquiry into the landing of a United States Air Force aircraft at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) last Monday.

In her resolution, Marcos stated that a Boeing C-17 strategic transport aircraft owned or operated by the US military landed at NAIA in the morning of June 26.

“According to a source, the Manila International Airport Integrated Command and Control Center was not given any advisory on the arrival of aforesaid aircraft,” the senator said in her resolution, which used the old name of the country’s airport and not its current name NAIA.

The country’s airport was renamed after the late opposition senator Benigno Aquino Jr., who was assassinated on the airport tarmac during the regime of the senator’s father, the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

Marcos said she verified her information with the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), which told her that the US aircraft had the go signal from the US embassy and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to enter Philippine airspace for “Kapit Bisig” activities.

But the aircraft – which had nine military crew members and a passenger onboard when it departed Guam for Puerto Princesa, Palawan – stayed at NAIA for 10 hours and only departed at 6:10 p.m. for its one hour trip to Palawan.

Marcos scored the CAAP, DFA and Department of National Defense for lack of coordination about the US aircraft’s arrival.

The senator wanted to know if it was true that the airport command center was not given an advisory on why the aircraft stayed in Manila for 10 hours, what cargo the aircraft carried and where it was offloaded in the country. –  Pia Lee-Brago, Diana Lhyd Suelto