Chaos

By Artchil B. Fernandez

The chaos at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) on the first day of 2023 depicts the most accurate picture of the country under the leadership of Bongbong Marcos (BBM).

January 1, 2023 marked the day pandemonium broke loose in Philippine skies. That it happened in one of the busiest days of the year compounded the woes of 65,000 travelers. New Year holidaymakers were aghast, disgusted, angry, frustrated, infuriated, and stressed when they found their flights to and from Manila were either diverted or cancelled. The flight of Jala Toukan from Hong Kong was 15 minutes away from Manila when it was forced to turn back. At the initial hours of the incident, no explanation was given to the aggrieved passengers, further complicating their situation.

“There are no ticketing officers and apparently there are no supervisors. Wow, crisis mode, no one is handling [passenger inquiries]. There is also no one who is emergency troubleshooting… And there are a lot of foreigners who don’t know what is happening because no one is explaining in a language that they can understand,” passenger Ralph Fonte shared. Many passengers en route to Manila were stranded in various airports around the world.

Later, authorities explained that a technical glitch was responsible for the chaos. “The primary cause identified was a problem with the power supply and the degraded uninterrupted power supply, which had no link to the commercial power, and had to be connected to the other manually,” Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista explained. “The secondary problem was the power surge due to the power outage, which affected the equipment.”

Travelers victimized by the disorder in NAIA vented their ire in social media. PLDT chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan shared his dismay on Twitter. “We’re told radar and navigation facilities at NAIA down. I was on my way home from Tokyo – 3 hours into the flight, but had to return to Haneda. 6 hours of useless flying but inconvenience to travelers and losses to tourism and business are horrendous. Only in the PH. Sigh,” Pangilinan lamented in a tweet.

On the day thousands of travellers to Manila were pissed off by the turmoil in NAIA, BBM was nowhere to be found. He did not address the problem nor acted to ease the pain and suffering of the passengers. When BBM went public late in the day, it was not to calm frayed nerves but to release a vlog featuring him and Vice President Sara Duterte. In the vlog, both shared their New Year’s resolution which is “to get more sleep.” Indeed, he was sleeping while Philippine sky was in chaos.

Twitter was again ablaze when BBM released his vlog amid the turmoil at the airport. “The entire radar system of NAIA was an epic fail yesterday affecting 282 flights and 56K passengers. What did we get? A vlog,” a Miss Maggie angrily tweeted. “NAIA has become such an embarrassment to the world because of the NAIA issue and you’re here releasing a vlog? Go work, lazy,” another furious user posted.

The chaos did not end with the NAIA incident. Another chaotic incident followed a week later involving the security apparatus of the state. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) was thrown into chaos when BBM suddenly replaced the chief of staff. AFP chief Lt. Gen. Bartolome Bacarro found himself out of job when BBM, in a surprise move, replaced him with former AFP chief Gen. Andres Centino. This was the first time a former chief of staff was recalled to the position. No explanation was given for the abrupt change of leadership creating dissention within the military.

Acting defense secretary Jose Faustino Jr. resigned in protest of the hasty change of leadership in the AFP. “With the utmost respect, I submitted my irrevocable letter of resignation to the President, His Excellency Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., on Friday, January 6, 2023, after learning only from news and social media reports that an oath of office of the new Chief of Staff, AFP had taken place at Malacañang,” a visibly disappointed Faustino told the public. National Security Adviser Clarita Ramos was also kept in the dark of the rushed change in AFP leadership.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) was similarly thrown into confusion when Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. suddenly told top officials to submit their courtesy resignation. The resignation call divided the PNP leadership.  So far 600 police generals and colonels out of 956 police officers or 70 percent has complied. Many officers are apprehensive of the call for courtesy resignation.

The twin moves of BBM – sudden replacement of AFP chief and call for courtesy resignation of PNP officials – have shaken the security sector. With the motive behind the actions shrouded in mystery and cloaked in darkness, this only turned the AFP and the PNP topsy-turvy.

BBM started 2023 with chaos and this reflects the disarray in his leadership. This is the fruit of having no concrete vision or plan for the country. His campaign platform is unity. He never spelled out what unity really mean in terms of leadership, policy, program, foreign relation, economic development, or governance. The vague word (unity) was used to deceive and mislead the voters by claiming that this is the magic word that will solve what ails the country.

What the country got instead is chaos. With a president whose top priority is manufacturing positive image for himself and his family, governing the nation or serving the interest of the Filipino people is not BBM’s concern. He would rather vlog than fix the serious social ills besetting the nation. Under BBM’s rule unity equals chaos.