THE Department of Transportation (DOTr) has ordered the Manila International Airport Authority (Miaa) to conduct a “full electrical audit” of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia), following the power outage on Monday, a disruption where sabotage has not been ruled out.
In a press briefing, Transportation Secretary Jaime B. Bautista said the airport is due for an audit, and this time, he is ordering a “full audit” instead of the usual periodic review.
“We are talking about a full electrical audit of Terminal 3, which started operations in 2009 and underwent electrical audit in 2017. Not all recommendations were implemented and since then the capacity of Terminal 3 increased,” he said.
Bautista told a news briefing he was not ruling out “sabotage” as a possible cause of Monday’s power outage at Terminal 3, as well as previous outages on New Year’s Day in 2023, and last September 17, 2022. “We’ve contacted NICA [National Intelligence Coordinating Agency] to investigate these. We’re not discounting sabotage [as the cause]. Meralco will also help assess if there was sabotage,” he said.
MIAA General Manager Cesar Chiong apologized for the inconvenience experienced by the passengers at Naia 3 due to the power outage. He said 9,000 passengers and 247 flights were affected by the power outage, which lasted from 1:05 am to 8:46 am. “No international flights were affected,” he noted, and underscored that the 9,000 passengers affected accounted for 7 percent of total passengers who use the Naia daily.
For his part, Cebu Pacific president Alexander Lao, who was also present at news briefing, said the airline immediately offered rebooking options to its passengers. As of 12:30 pm, 48 flights of Cebu Pacific were canceled on Monday. “Some passengers immediately rebooked [to the next available flight], while others chose later dates. They can do these using the digital process [on the airline’s app].”
Documents
Bautista, meanwhile, admitted that “not all documents and manuals were turned over to the Miaa” when it got possession of the airport facility in 2009, following a legal battle with the contractors.
“That is why it is important to have a full audit of the Terminal 3. It’s about time that we fix this. We will be needing a huge budget for this and we might need more time, considering that we will undergo the regular procurements process. So this will be a big undertaking—the rehab of Terminal 3,” Bautista said.
The capacity of Naia 3 has increased since the last audit in 2017; there are more concessionaires, and the number of flights have increased. The audit will “need funds” he said, but there were still no estimates on how much the exercise would cost, especially if the other terminals will be included in the audit.
Terminals 1, 2 also
The transport chief said he will order the inclusion of Terminals 1 and 2 in the conduct of the full electrical audit, “since our other terminals are also old.”
This may take between 60 days and 90 days, but will only commence once the procurement process has been completed.
On a regular basis, Miaa conducts an electrical audit of the Naia every five years. Its last audit was in 2017.
Miaa Civil Works Department Officer-in-Charge Antonio P. Mendoza admitted that the agency “unfortunately” failed to conduct the audit in 2022, “due to the pandemic.” Even then, he said, if the audit had pushed through, there was no telling if the outage on Labor Day could have been prevented. “If there was a need to upgrade and parts replaced, this doesn’t happen overnight,” he said, emphasizing that the rehabilitation would have also taken time.
Post-midnight outage
Labor Day saw a power outage at the Naia Terminal 3 in the wee hours of the morning, affecting 24 domestic flights, which represent 6.5 percent of the total flights that operate in Naia on a daily basis.
Chiong, for his part, said the power generators kicked in immediately after the outage, but serviced just 30 percent of Naia 3, so-called “mission critical areas,” which included check-in counters and the Immigration areas. “There was parts that were air conditioned but due to the heat of the season, they were also not as comfortable,” he admitted.
A team from the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) immediately arrived at the terminal to conduct necessary works to restore the power.
Meralco Manager for Manila Sector Noel Espiritu said initial investigation showed that a “fault indication at the main circuit breaker of Naia Terminal 3” caused the power outage. A spike in power “stressed” the elbow connector, which was then replaced to restore the power at the terminal.
“We’re still trying to determine what happened to that fault current,” he said.
This is not the first time that Naia had power issues. On New Year’s Day, Naia had to suspend its operations for several hours after experiencing a “loss of power in the system due to a problem in the system’s electrical network, with its uninterruptible power supply also failing.”
That outage was more massive, disrupting nearly 300 flights and stranding over 60,000 travelers.
Image credits: NONIE REYES, Nonie Reyes
