One bullet sets back our gains in tourism

Yesterday we observed All Saints’ Day and today is All Souls’ Day. I featured All Saints’ Day on my talk show in MyTV’s My Catechism with Fr. Lucas Inoc. We talked about the teachings of the Catholic Church on why we pray to saints and above all, that the annual commemoration of All Saints’ Day brings us hope that indeed as the Lord Jesus Christ said, “In my Father’s house, there are many dwellings places”, which means if we all do good, we would be spending life eternal in one of those places reserved for the righteous.

For our commemoration of All Souls’ Day, this time we bring you Fr. Jose Adonis “Don Don” Aquino, Vice Rector of the San Carlos Seminary Major on our talk show on Straight from the Sky to give us the teachings of the Catholic Church on why we pray for our dearly departed brethren. Many ancient cultures believe in life after death. The story of our Lord Jesus Christ being sent by God the Father literally to die for our sins, gives us hope that with his resurrection, we are all destined for salvation in life eternal.

So watch this very educational show about All Souls’ Day on SkyCable’s channel 61 at 8:00 tonight with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV’s channel 30 at 9:00 tonight and at 7:00AM and 9:00PM on Wednesday and Friday.

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The issue dubbed “Lag lag Bala” or “Tanim Bala” has been swirling around in social media networks and the major news media outlets where airport security personnel from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport were caught secretly dropping bullets into the bags of a Overseas Foreign Worker foreign tourists, even a missionary priest and extorting money from them otherwise they are sent to jail.

But a week later, this is still happening at the NAIA. Obviously this problem hasn’t been checked by the Aquino Regime, making it one of the most embarrassing episodes in the five-year rule of Pres. Benigno Aquino III, something that he cannot pin on his predecessor because this incident has never happened with past administrations.

So you can say this incident is uniquely under the Aquino Regime’s incompetent management. While I learned that five NAIA personnel have been investigated, but somehow the bullet-in-the-bag scheme has not dissipated. It is still happening. Come now… aren’t airport security personnel scared that their nefarious scheme has been exposed to the public?

Well, Time magazine has now featured an article entitled, “Airport Security in the Philippines has been putting bullets in luggage to extort passengers.” That article will certainly set back whatever gains that the Tourism sector had in the last five years. What will foreign tourists planning to come to the Philippines think… that a mere bullet that they did not even bring could get them in hot water? Never in the annals of our history has something like this ever exposed to the embarrassment of the nation!

What gets our gall is that Pres. PNoy has not fired NAIA general manager Jose Angel Honrado. After all, our international airports are the doormat into the country. Mind you, this is one of the favorite topics that we gathered during the All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day celebration.

For sure, millions of Filipinos from all walks of life know about this and I reckon it will certainly hurt the presidential bid of Manuel “Mar Roxas,” the appointed one of Pres. Aquino to succeed him, as Roxas would continue the so-called reforms he made in his government. Call this incident another nail in the coffin of  Daang Matuwid that even small fry government employees in NAIA are out to extort money from their innocent victims.

This incident was first exposed when an old woman OFW who was going back to Hong Kong was caught with a bullet in her luggage and she was detained for two days. It was then that the media got hold of this story and eventually it discovered many other incidents as well. For sure, these very corrupt airport security personnel have been doing this for some time now and it is only now that they have been caught red handed.

This is one incident that Malacañang has tried to downplay but to no avail. Worse, Communications Secretary Herminio “Sonny” Coloma trivialized this incident, asking the people to look more at the positive things happening at the NAIA these days… like it is no longer number one in the World’s Worst Airports list. But the public outcry has continued.

Well, the news last Saturday was that Pres. Aquino has finally ordered the investigation of this incident. Obviously the President could no longer deny that NAIA has now caused him grave problems. So if PNoy wants to salvage what little credibility is left of his Daang Matuwid, he should fire the NAIA general manager right away!

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