INQUIRER PHOTO / RICHARD A. REYES
Since January, airport officials have donated about a hundred boxes of clothes, footwear and other items to some 800 families rendered homeless by recent fires in Metro Manila.
Their source: The scores of bags and boxes left unclaimed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia).
The Naia’s Intelligence and Investigation Division (IID), which also serves as the airport’s lost-and-found office, keeps unclaimed bags or packages for six months to wait for their owners, after which these are deemed forfeited in favor of the government.
In January, the IID turned over 30 boxes of clothes, footwear, utensils, toiletries, and other household items, as well as 30 suitcases, to the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
The items were for distribution among families in Barangay Apolonio Samson, Quezon City, where a fire destroyed 200 homes on New Year’s Day, according to IID manager Melchor de los Santos.
In February, Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) general manager Jose Angel Honrado sent over 50 boxes of donated goods to fire victims in Barangay 184 in Maribacan, Pasay City.
Last week, on Maundy Thursday, De los Santos handed over 20 boxes to the chair of Barangay BF Homes in Parañaque City, where a March 28 fire displaced some 250 families in the Dela Rama Compound.
In 2014, MIAA donated a total of 115 boxes of goods,
including folding tables and baby strollers, to Caritas Manila, fire victims in Tondo and the Rotary Club of Manila.
Meanwhile, a total of $5,500 (about P245,000) and some P100,000 in cash left behind by passengers remain unclaimed at the IID office.
Of the total, $3,000 was found by a passenger at Naia Terminal 1 and turned over to the security office, while $2,500 was found by a maintenance worker at Terminal 2, De los Santos said. Both were found last month.
The P100,000 was found at the Terminal 3 departure area, De los Santos said.