60% of cases filed vs OTS personnel at NAIA dismissed for lack of merit
MANILA, Philippines — Nearly 60 percent of theft and extortion complaints filed by airline passengers nationwide against Office for Transportation Security (OTS) personnel have been dismissed as baseless and without merit.
Based on records from September 2014 to September, 2015, which were obtained by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, most of the complaints investigated by the the OTS Transport Security Risk Management Bureau’s Security Investigation Section (TSRMB-SIS) were dropped either for lack of merit or absence of proof.
In at least two of the dismissed cases, which resulted in the reinstatement of OTS personnel, passengers were blamed for fabricating malicious claims.
The TRSMB-SIS is an office under the OTS, an attached agency of the Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC).
The records included the complaint filed by a Filipino-American woman, alleging extortion through bullet-planting involving two OTS personnel, a male x-ray operator and a female frisker, assigned at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) terminal 2, on Sept. 18.
Instead of the alleged extortion, the TSRMB-SIS has begun focusing on the wheelchair-bound woman’s claim that she bribed with P500 two OTS personnel, who allegedly planted two .22-caliber bullets in her luggage, just so she could fly home and avoid a criminal record.
According to the records on the “2015 disposition of cases referred for fact-finding investigation by the TSRMB-SIS,” out of 21 complaints of pilferage, extortion and theft, 12 were dismissed.
Noticeably still 17 of the 21 complaints, approximately 80 percent of the incidents, involved OTS personnel assigned at the NAIA.
The extortion complaints usually stemmed from the discovery of prohibited items in a passenger’s baggage specifically liquids, aerosols, and gels (LAGs); objects in commercial quantity; and a large amount of cash. Pilferage and theft involved items allegedly taken from passenger baggage which pass through the airport’s x-ray scanners.
Among the four complaints from provincial airports, only one was found to have merit with the TSRMB-SIS recommending the filing of a criminal charge against a female security screening officer (SSO) who had already resigned from the OTS.
The former SSO, previously assigned at the Naga Airport, was recommended to be charged administratively for the January 2theft of a wristwatch from a Dubai-bound overseas worker with the fact-finding body simply concluding that the SSO “probably took the watch.”
In another incident which happened on September last year, a Manila-bound passenger claimed that she lost two gold rings worth P150,000 to Roxas Airport OTS personnel who manually inspected her carry-on luggage. But the TSRMB-SIS, in an April 24report, gave more weight to the SSOs’ statements because of the passenger’s “vague story.”
On May 10, a Manila-bound Chinese passenger from the Davao International Airport claimed that his P1.5-million Audemars Piguet wristwatch was stolen by two SSOs when he removed it during security inspection. The TSRMB-SIS dismissed the complaint on July 31, saying that an exhaustive analysis of the CCTV showed no SSO near the x-ray machine where the passenger claimed he lost the watch.
Likewise, the TSRMB-SIS found no solid proof to charge a male SSO assigned at the Legazpi International Airport with extortion based on a March 19 complaint aired by Ako Bikol partylist Representative Rodel Batocabe. According to Batocabe, a number of Chinese tourists have complained of a male SSO who asked for tips from arriving or departing tourists. The July 13 final report said that while the OTS man could not be charged with extortion, he was recommended for transfer to a different port.
In the more recent incident of alleged extortion at the NAIA on September 18, the TSRMB-SIS found no evidence of the Filipino-American passenger’s extortion claim through a “laglag bala” or bullet-planting scheme, against the two OTS personnel.
According to the TSRMB-SIS’s initial investigation report on the complaint, “The claim of extortion could not be proven since there was probability that she could have bribed the SSOs as she said that she pleaded not to make a report against her.”
It further said that a review of the MIAA closed circuit TV records showed that the bullets were already detected inside the baggage when it passed through the x-ray machine on the first and second screening which was attested to by the porter who assisted the wheelchair-bound woman.
OTS spokesperson Jonathan Maliwat assured the public the case was still being investigated, as of Wednesday, for the possible filing of administrative charges against the two SSOs. The TSRMB-SIS is in the process of determining the specific administrative offenses that they might have been committed in the incident. SFM
