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By Angelo Samonte, Reporter
President Gloria Arroyo sacked acting Assistant
Secretary Daniel Dimagiba of the Air Transportation Office (ATO) and
designated Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza to replace him.
Dimagiba was removed from his post after the US
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) downgraded the Philippines
from Category 1 to Category 2 following the Air Transportation
Office’s failure to address aviation safety and security issues.
Mendoza will handle Air Transportation Office
while lawmakers deliberate on a bill that will improve the
country’s aviation industry and eventually retain its Category 1
status, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said Thursday.
The President gave Mendoza three months to
address the country’s aviation industry concerns, Bunye added.
Rep. Monico Puentevella of Bacolod, chairman of
the House Committee on Transportation, said they will pass a bill,
which will be ready for President’s signature by February, to
retain the country’s previous aviation safety status.
Earlier, Congress failed to pass a bill creating
the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines that was to replace
the Air Transportation Office and give the office more powers—and
more funding.
“We are serious in addressing this problem to
improve our aviation industry,” Puentevella said. “We’re glad
that both houses of Congress were able to pass a bill last December
only after three weeks of deliberation.”
The measure failed to pass the bicameral
committee, however.
Puentevella admitted that the FAA downgrade of
the Philippine aviation safety status will affect carriers flying US
routes particularly their expansion plans in that country.
The bill pending in Congress seeks the autonomy
for the Air Transportation Office from the Department of
Transportation and Communications.
The new office will have a yearly allocation of
P3 billion to effectively run airports, improve facilities, upgrade
flying school curriculum and give personnel better compensation to
prevent them from working overseas.
The FAA downgraded the country’s status after
American authorities found that the country’s civil aviation
authorities do not provide safety oversight of its air carriers in
accordance with the minimum safety oversight standards of
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). That organization
is a special agency of the United Nations created in 1944 to promote
safe and orderly development of international civil aviation
throughout the world.
The US Embassy advised Americans traveling to
and from the Philippines to fly to their destinations on
international carriers from countries whose civil aviation
authorities meet international aviation safety standards.
“While in Category 2, Philippine air carriers
will be permitted to continue current operations to the United
States, [they] will be under heightened FAA surveillance,” the
embassy said in its website.
But Bunye said the embassy overreacted and the
government could address the administrative and technical problems
as a result of the downgrade.
“We have high safety aviation record and that
advisory is not necessary,” he said.
The Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA)
said on Thursday that the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA)
is ICAO compliant.
-- With Darwin G. Amojelar
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