Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista has come to the defense of embattled Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) general manager Cesar Chiong, saying he (Chiong) was summarily suspended and not given a chance to air his side.
“There was no question. They don’t even know there were cases filed against them until they received the order…. Nag-file lang sila, I think ng motion for reconsideration,” Bautista told the Makati Business Club, referring to Chiong and MIAA assistant general manager Irene Montalbo.
The Office of the Ombudsman ordered preventive suspension of Chiong Montalbo for alleged grave abuse of authority and grave misconduct in connection with the alleged “indiscriminate reassignment” of 285 employees.
The announcement of his preventive suspension came a day after a power outage hit NAIA Terminal 3, resulting in the cancellation of over 40 flights.
The six-month preventive suspension was served a day after the May 1st power outage that hit the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3, resulting in the cancellation of some 40 flights.
Bautista admitted that he recommended Chiong to the MIAA.
“The general manager of the airport was my recommendation to the President. He was appointed in July [last year] and since then, he has implemented a lot of reforms. He has implemented a lot of reforms to improve passenger service but in doing so, he moved some people from different positions,” Bautista told the Makati Business Club.
“And there was a case filed against him for not really removing people, but moving them to different positions. And that the Ombudsman made the decision to suspend him for six months,” he added.
Bautista said he was informed that Chiong was “never asked to explain or was aware that a case was filed against him.”
The complaint allegedly stemmed from an anonymous sender regarding the decision of Chiong to reshuffle 285 workers of MIAA a month after his assumption of the MIAA post.
Bautista maintained that Chiong was only doing his job to improve the passenger service in the agency.
“You will notice that even the security guards and the police before entering the terminals are already out there. There’s no more initial X-ray check, which is the practice in other countries, because I told them that let’s adopt best practices in airport operations and one of the first things that you need to really do is remove the initial X-ray checking,” he said.
“In the Philippines, we have this initial X-ray check that causes congestion, but now there’s no more X-ray checking on the gates when you enter the airport,” Bautista added.
