House Committee on Transportation Chairman Antipolo City 2nd district Rep. Romeo Acop couldn't help but think of worst-case scenarios involving the aviation sector after experts failed to categorically rule out cyber attack as a possible cause of the Jan. 1 Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) crisis.
It was the transportation panel that held a briefing Wednesday, Jan. 18--it's second one in roughly a week--on the disastrous power outage that triggered over 400 flight cancellations.
Acop noted that during the first briefing last Jan. 10, the attending transportation and aviation officials described it as "remote" for a cyber attack the cause of the New Year's day flight cancellations.
"Pero kung titignan po natin, dahil hindi nae-examine yung data, or yung logs, hindi natin masasabi na kuwan (But since the data, the logs aren't being examined, we cannot say that)--it was subjected to cyber attack. And you could just imagine...nakikita ko na yung defense system at maintenance system ng ating critical equipment ay mahina (I can see that our critical equipments' defense and maintenance systems are weak)," he sad.
The Philippine National Police (PNP) general turned--congressman--was referring to NAIA's Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Systems for Air Traffic), which allegedly glitched last Jan. 1, leading to the outage.
"You could just imagine, if your theory is right, they can breach into the core of the CNS/ATM system. You could just imagine the chaos...the chaos that would ensue," Acop said.
"If this can be in the hands of terrorists, guguluhin lang niya ang Pilipinas, pagbabanggain niya yung dalawang eroplano sa ere or pagka-crashin niya (they will create chaos in the Philippines, they will make two air planes collide or crash them). And you could just imagine the damage that it would do to our country," he said.
Acop vented his frustration over the information that has been put forward during the briefings. "Kaya nga ineemphasize ko (That's why I've been emphasizing it) from the very start, this critical system must be maintained to protect it. Eh ang kaso, binabale-wala natin eh (But we're neglecting it)," he further said.
CICC: System too big
The CNS/ATM is being maintained by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP). A cyber attack would suggest that the NAIA glitch was caused by an external breach--specifically one coming from online.
Earlier during Wednesday's briefing, Cyber Investigation Crime Commission (CICC) Undersecretary Alexander Ramos admitted to the House panel that they don't possess surveillance tools against cyber attacks.
Ramos said one reason why a cyber attack "has not been an issue...yet" is the sheer size of the CAAP system.
"The complete investigation on CAAP system, malaki ho yung system nila eh (they have a big system). Hindi ho, hindi pa po kumpleto (No, it's not yet complete). We are addressing the most critical part, which is the one that is powering up the whole system.
"Yan ho ang ating (That has been our) directive to ensure continuity, to ensure quality, to ensure hindi nagagalaw siya, externally (to ensure that it wasn't breached externally). As far as the operations side, no. We haven't even finished the assessment of it," he explained.
Ramos said afterwards that there's a budget problem within the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) that prevents them from purchasing "forward-looking tools". "We don't have surveillance systems. This is cyber threat analysis," he said.
Asked by Parañaque City 2nd district Rep. Gus Tambunting if he could categorically say whether or not the NAIA crisis was the result of a cyber attack, the CICC official remarked:
"It can be said like this, we're given sticks and stones to go to war but we are not backing down. We doing it based on capability. Give us the tools and maybe we can ride on something faster."
To this, Acop said: "Your statements are not very assuring."