No more brownouts, Palace orders NAIA

Malacañang directed airport officials yesterday to improve the facilities of the country’s airports to prevent embarrassing "brownouts" that give the Philippines a bad image.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita also said the Palace would make sure the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 (NAIA 3) would be "brown out-free" even during bad weather.

"What happened to NAIA 1 and 2 was very unusual. This is a lesson for our airport managers and engineers to be prepared for future typhoons and other calamities," Ermita said.

"This is also a reminder to those trying to finish our NAIA 3 to take a special look at the facility, otherwise we will be hit by heavy typhoons in the future and we will be embarrassed even with the new NAIA 3," he said.

The Palace issued the statement after NAIA 1 and the Centennial Terminal suffered brownouts as a result of Typhoon Milenyo. The power outage caused much inconvenience to arriving and departing passengers.

One Norwegian-bound passenger for Amsterdam fainted due to the heat caused by the lack of air-conditioning at NAIA 1.

President Arroyo earlier ordered the Department of Transportation and Communication to finish the evaluation of the structural integrity of the NAIA 3 by next month and open the facility to flights by end-March 2007.

NAIA 3 is the most modern of the country’s three international airports in Metro Manila, but remains unopened due to lingering legal wrangling over the contract to build it.

Meanwhile, the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) said full air-conditioninghas been restored at NAIA 1 after Meralco service to the NAIA complex normalized last Sunday.

However, the power tripped suddenly at 3 p.m. yesteday, throwing the terminal into darkness for several minutes, similar to what passengers experienced for three days in the aftermath of Milenyo.

The tripping cut off power supply to the terminal’s air conditioners anew.

Engineer Elpidio Mendoza, MIAA assistant general manager for engineering, downplayed the power interruption, saying that it was just for an hour, with regular power from Meralco restored at around 4 p.m.

NAIA 1 again had to rely on their generators operated by contractor Powergen, which cannot produce enough energy to turn on the terminal’s air conditioners.

Oofficials from the Airline Operators Council, the organization of the station managers of the 30 international airlines operating at the NAIA complex, which includes Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific, said the air conditioners have been turned on full blast since morning to the relief of hundreds of their passengers.

While Meralco was able to restore their service as early as Sunday, NAIA-1 personnel refrained from turning on the air-conditioners to prevent an overload.