The Senate is not passing judgment as it has yet to conclude its probe on the New Year’s Day airspace shutdown at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA)

‘’At this point, it’s still too early to say but the airspace shutdown last January 1 is truly unacceptable,’’ Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva said.

‘’The explanation of CAAP (Civili aviation authority of the Philippines) and other DOTr (Department of Transportation) officials was lacking and did not give us clarity on what really transpired, and assurance that a similar incident will not happen again,’’ he pointed out.

Two things, however, were clear to senators at the moment:

First, regular maintenance checks were lacking, and such checks would have prevented the incident altogether.

Second, the staggering number of job order and/or contractual workers in CAAP, even bigger than the number of regular workers, is disheartening. Out of the 6,869 CAAP employees, 59.8 percent or 4,107 are under job order or COS status and only 40.2 percent or 2,762 are regular employees.

‘’Nevertheless, it is noteworthy to study the possibility of privatizing our airport operations to improve the over-all airport performance of the country. But we need to make sure that once the proposal pushes through, current employees will be protected, especially those under JO/COS,’’ he added.

The Senate is not passing judgment as it has yet to conclude its probe on the New Year’s Day technical glitch at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Senator Grace Poe said.

‘’Based on our hearing, it was clear that while CAAP believes it has the people and the equipment in place, it has come up short in addressing an incident that started with an apparatus failure,’’ Poe, chairwoman of the Senate public services committee, said.

Poe said senators have heard substantially from the CAAP on how the fiasco came to be, and from some agencies on how it has impacted sectors. ‘'The thrust forward is to take a proactive step to our air traffic system which requires putting the necessary personnel and systems to deal with any possible glitches before they arise,’’ she stressed.

The senator said getting a third party maintenance provider should be seriously considered.

‘’We must not be satisfied with troubleshooting or band-aid solutions to even the tiniest smoke because the safety of our air passengers is at stake,’’ she added.