Transportation Secretary Jimmy Bautista is investigating the possibility of sabotage in the latest power failure at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 which stranded 9,000 passengers and cancelled 48 flights.
Bautista said the Department of Transportation has asked the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) to investigate the cause of the power failure which started at 1:05 am on May 1.
“Hindi natin dini-discount din ‘yan (sabotage), and Meralco will also siguro help us assess kung talagang merong sabotage or not, kaya nga dapat pag-aralan natin mabuti lahat ‘yan,” said Bautista in an interview with reporters.
Bautista still asked the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) to investigate the power outage, even though a Meralco engineer said it was caused by a circuit breaker that tripped due to a power surge.
Bautista had also claimed sabotage during the New Year’s Day airport chaos when a power outage affected 65,000 airline passengers and canceled or delayed over 600 flights.
But a Senate committee probe on the January 1 airport fiasco ruled out sabotage and cyberattack as the cause of the power failure.
Instead, the Senate committee led by Bautista’s biggest backer, Senator Grace Poe, blamed the outage on the airport’s faulty power system, specifically its UPS, circuit breaker and automatic voltage regulator.
The committee had also recommended an energy audit of the airport. Apparently, Bautista did not heed the committee’s advice as he called for a full electrical audit of NAIA 3 following the Labor Day chaos.
Bautista said it was about time NAIA conducted an electrical audit since the most recent one was conducted six years ago. “Since then, lumaki nang lumaki capacity ng Terminal 3 kaya ang recommendation nila,” Bautista said.
There have been three major power failures in the airport since Bautista was appointed in July 2022. The NAIA 3 suffered a seven-hour power failure in September which delayed over 30 flights.