Manila Airport Clears Air on U.S. Security Worries

The way airport manager Aurelio German sees it, U.S. Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole clearly had no idea what kind of month he was having when she declared his international airport here to be unsafe earlier this month.

Heading a massive bureaucracy 10,000 miles away, Dole could not possibly have known that German has spent his first weeks on the job trying to clean up one of the most corrupt and chaotic airports in the world--yet another legacy, he says, of deposed Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos’ 20 years of rule.

Dole could not have known, German says, that, in the last six weeks alone:

--He has had to resist and report for prosecution offers of bribes totaling more than 11 million pesos ($650,000).

--He has fired more than a dozen airport security guards for taking bribes from taxi drivers who later robbed their passengers at gunpoint.

--He has received half a dozen death threats because of his clean-up campaign.

--His airport has been flooded with dozens of sophisticated firearms being smuggled into the Philippines from America.

--He has personally chased away hordes of corrupt customs fixers, taxi drivers and hotel agents who, for years, packed the airport’s arrival hall.

On Wednesday, though, Aurelio German was wondering whether Dole ever knew anything about his ultramodern airport.

Airport Called Safe

Three weeks after the U.S. transportation secretary issued an “advisory to travelers” declaring Manila International Airport to be unsafe, a three-member team from the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration toured the airport for three days.

Their conclusion: Manila International Airport is not only safe, it actually exceeds most of the anti-terrorism and anti-hijacking standards set down by the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Although Deputy Assistant Transportation Secretary Philip Haseltine, who left the Philippines on Wednesday after heading the inspection, declined to comment on his findings until he reports to Dole, several sources close to the U.S. team said the whole affair may well become something of an embarrassment to Dole and her department.

At the very least, Philippine officials say, the department has been undiplomatic.

When Dole decided a few weeks ago that, on the basis of a similar inspection in May, Manila airport was in violation of safety standards and should be a test case for 1985 anti-terrorism legislation requiring such inspections at about 100 airports worldwide, her department released the findings to the American press before it officially notified the Philippine government.

Manila Protested

The declaration prompted protests from three Philippine ministries. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs protested to Secretary of State George P. Shultz. Minister of Tourism Antonio Gonzalez, who was in the United States at the time, told reporters in Washington that Dole’s department was going to cripple the Philippine economy at a time when the rest of the Reagan Administration was trying to help the economy out of its worst crisis since World War II.

And Transportation Minister Hernando Perez was so angry that he announced he would send a team of Philippine security experts to inspect all the American airports that President Corazon Aquino will use during her U.S. visit next month “to see if they’re up to our standards.”

Philippine Foreign Ministry officials say that U.S. Embassy officials here quietly tendered an unofficial apology.

Now, though, it appears the original findings that provoked Dole’s order were far from serious breaches of airport security. And several Western diplomats here, who asked not to be named, said the Transportation Department’s advisory appears to have been more of an attempt by the department to show the Congress that it was implementing the anti-terrorism law than it was an effort to safeguard the world’s airways.

What all the fuss was about, German said, was a handful of air-bridge doors, which the inspectors said should have been made of steel and better guarded; an incident in which an FAA inspector was allowed to walk onto the tarmac without an official pass--German said a guard recognized the official and gave him access out of courtesy--and a misunderstanding in which the inspectors thought there was a break in the airport’s perimeter fence when, in reality, there was none.

Tourism Fell 2%

“And because of that, the U.S. government tells the world our airport is unsafe, and our incoming tourist traffic here falls off 2%,” German said in an interview a few hours after the American inspectors flew home.

“Now they tell us we’re actually above standard in many areas. They tell us they’re impressed with the airport in every respect, and then they go home. The whole thing is ridiculous.”

Tourism Minister Gonzalez put it a bit more strongly. “It’s pretty clear that the American authorities involved here really shot themselves in the foot this time,” he said Thursday.

Both officials said Haseltine and his inspection team assured them that Dole probably will lift the Manila travel advisory next week.

“In spite of the embarrassment and everything else, though, I would say there have been some positive effects from this whole affair,” Gonzalez said. “It has forced us to focus a little more on just how safe the airport really is, and the U.S. government has even donated additional security equipment to us that we never could have afforded.”

For airport manager German, the U.S. team’s visit presented an opportunity to register a protest of his own with U.S. authorities, one that he says is far more serious than any problems that the American officials cited at his airport.

“You see, our problem here is not hijacking or terrorism,” German said.

Smuggling Is Problem

“Our problem is one of thievery and smuggling, in particular, the smuggling of firearms into our country from San Francisco and Los Angeles.”

In the past two months alone, Philippine customs agents have intercepted more than 100 rifles, machine guns and machine pistols, most of them in luggage that originated from Los Angeles International Airport, German said.

Philippine military officials say they suspect pro-Marcos elements have been smuggling the weapons into the country in preparation for a coup against Aquino’s government.

“The point we made to the American inspection team this time is that there’s obviously no effective checking of baggage at U.S. airports,” German said. “Here, you go through X-ray, and everything is opened, even check-through baggage.”

German said his military staff at the airport considers the weapons a potential threat to the Philippines’ national security, and he officially asked the U.S. transportation officials to lobby for changing inspection regulations at all American airports.

“They come here and tell us our security is lax, and, meanwhile, their security at home is so lax it is permitting all of these firearms to flow into our country,” German said. “Now that’s logic, right?”