MANY victims of the alleged bullet planting scam (“laglag bala” or “tanim bala”) at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport have come forward to fight against airport personnel, including Rhed de Guzman, the Fil-Am caregiver from Los Angeles, who went to the Philippine Consulate to file her affidavit about her experience at NAIA.
American missionary Lane Michael White also appeared before the Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearing to testify about the extortion effort made by airport personnel after they “planted” bullet in his luggage.
One former employee of the Office of Transportation Security revealed to ABS-CBN News Correspondent Zyann Ambrosio his first-hand encounter of this scheme at the NAIA.
This former employee — who was referred to as “Manuel” in the report — disclosed that this scheme has been going on since 2008. While there may be passengers who bring bullets as anting-anting (charms), there are also those who accidentally leave bullets in their bags. The third type of passengers are those who did not bring any “bala”, but such bullets were planted by an airport personnel, who was in cahoots with other personnel. Sadly, all of these types of passengers have been subject to extortion.
Manuel also told ABS-CBN news about these characters in the airport who extort through these scheme: 1. The Tirador, or lead scammer; 2. The “bumubulong” or whisperer, who convinces victims to settle by subjecting the passenger to duress and intimidation.
The report reveals that retired servicemen are not picked as victims because these scammers think they likely know someone from the US Embassy, so they can report the incident.
Manuel believes that the familiarization among airport personnel makes it easier for them to implement this scheme, to the detriment of the passengers and the image of the Philippines.
It is embarrassing that this scam has been going on for more than seven years and the airport management has not done anything about this. It is about time people are fired and held accountable. There is no more time for the government to have a defensive and dismissive attitude.
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
