MIAA reviewing contracts with pest control, cleaning firms

NAIA Terminal 3 in March 2020. (File photo by RICHARD A. REYES / Philippine Daily Inquirer)

MANILA, Philippines — The Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) may cancel its contracts with pest control and housekeeping service providers if it is established that they failed to do their job, according to an airport official.

The MIAA has scheduled a meeting on Monday with the service providers for each of the four terminals of Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) “to check and evaluate their performance and track record.”

“If we prove that there is negligence on their part, we will check if we will need to cancel their contracts,” MIAA Head Executive Assistant Chris Noel Bendijo said in a radio interview on Saturday.

He added that MIAA General Manager Eric Ines earlier tasked him to conduct a thorough review of “all the contracts, obligations, proof of work and key performance indicators of our service providers.”

This was after Naia went viral for the wrong reasons following complaints last week from some passengers about being bitten, not just by the travel bug, but also by bedbugs or “surot.” This was followed by separate sightings of a rat and a cockroach roaming around the country’s main gateway.

Bendijo said the MIAA management is “also asking the same question”—how did the pests end up inside the airport?

“Whatever pest it is—be it cockroach, bedbug, rat or termite—it is their (service providers) obligation and management expects them to maintain cleanliness in our airport. There is no reason for a pest infestation,” he added.

Latest blow to Naia

MIAA officials said they would also meet with Naia medical and quarantine personnel about suspicions the bedbugs found on the rattan and metal gang chairs came from abroad.

The pest sightings were the latest blow to the reputation of Naia, which has been ranked the fourth worst airport in Asia for business travelers by Business Financing, a UK-based business finance and lending research and information provider.

In response to the complaints about bedbugs, Ines ordered the permanent pullout of infested rattan and metal gang chairs in waiting areas at Terminals 2 and 3, where passengers had said they were bitten.

New complaint

In a statement on Feb. 28, the MIAA also apologized to the public for the embarrassing situation and gave its assurance the incident would not happen again.

But a day later, passengers were able to video a rat running near the ceiling of Terminal 3’s Gate 102.

Another group of passengers also caught on video a cockroach crawling on a chair at the departure area in the same terminal.

According to MIAA officials, the rat and cockroach came from food concessionaires and restaurants inside the airport.

Following the pullout of surot-infested chairs, some departing passengers have complained about being forced to sit on the floor while waiting for their flights.

READ: Bed bugs, rat at NAIA ‘untypical’ but may harm tourism – Grace Poe

Bendijo said that to address the problem, Ines ordered the procurement of more chairs but in the meantime, the MIAA was “rotating” some of the chairs at Terminals 1 and 4 to replace those removed from Terminals 2 and 3.

The MIAA management said it wanted to solve the pest issue before the expected surge of passengers ahead of the Holy Week break.

He said air-conditioning and cooling systems at the airport were also undergoing maintenance and repairs in preparation for the more than 1 million passengers expected to pass through Naia for the long holidays. INQ