The Terminal from Hell

TERMINAL FROM HELL
Victorino P Mapa
The Filipino Channel’s TV Patrol last week announced that an international travel magazine voted Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International airport as the World’s worst air terminal. Something I’ve been saying all along a few issues back is now official. It’s not surprising – the acronym, NAIA sounds like what a pilot would shriek when his life flashes before his eyes, “we’re going down ! We’re going to crash ! We-re going to die ! - NAAEEYAAA ! “
The esteemed departed Ninoy himself once opined that you can always quick-guess how a country and/or its economy is doing by observing its airport and hookers. That is, if the airport is ugly but the hookers are pretty welcome to the Third world. Ninoy was jesting of course – but the designation fits Manila. It’s a label that Pinoys wouldn’t care to admit but it’s true.. The airport from hell that is being referred to is our Terminal 1 where all foreign carriers land or 90% of all arrivals. It was built in the seventies.and has been in a time-warp - little or no improvements and additions were ever made. There is an unused Terminal 2 finished twelve years ago It just sits there like a bride who’s been left waiting at the altar. So much graft, controversies, suits and counter-suits are so attached to it that it is expected to open perhaps in the 25th century. .
If you came via Philippine Airlines you would be going through Terminal 3. It is small by world standards. You can transplant the entire facility at Hongkong’s humungous Lantau terminal and it would easily fit into its lost-and-found room. Nevertheless it’s fairly new, tolerably air conditioned and crowd control is sane enough to induce patience while waiting for your luggage..Therein lies the anomaly. Terminal 3 is for the exclusive use of our national flag carrier. It’s like having a home where the family enters through the front door and asks its guests to come in through the kitchen. Very sad and doesn’t speak well of our world-famous Filipino hospitality.
The pre-view from the air prior to landing certainly bids welcome. The plane
circle’s around Luzon’s southern periphery and the sight alternates from the grandeur of Ta-al Lake and volcano to the lush, green Banahaw range, its slopes skirted with graceful coconut palms. There’s a quick-glimpse of Manila Bay before the wheels scrunch, you’re taxiing to the tarmac and the claustrophobic’s nightmare begins. More than half are Balikbayans driven to a frenzy at being home again that discipline and order is the first one out. What follows is a fair imitation of a cattle stampede .. If you escaped being trampled the momentum takes you one of three luggage carousels and you find yourself elbow-to-elbow with two or three other jumbo passengers who arrived at the same time. Incidentally the condition of the carousels is like the earthquake that recently hit Turkey. As all Balikbayans know there’s no such thing as a Filipino coming back with just two pieces of luggage Visualize yourself if you will as one in a cast of thousands who shove, jostle and gouge your way to the carousel where boulders of balikbayan boxes cascade down in an avalanche, each box with enough tonnage to give sumo wrestlers acute hernia. It’s worse than the storming of the Bastille.
Getting your stuff and fleeing the mob is only a teaser. Wait till you’re out of customs. Meeting arrivals is a serious Filipino pastime. If the passenger is Mr Jose Nobody he will be met by at least two carloads of relatives/well wishers; the arrivee’ who just finished four years at UCLA rates at least five cars and two jeepneys; Congressmen and up rate at least two busloads. Arrive with Manny Pacquiao and the scene is redolent of Moses’ exodus out of Egypt.
Getting out of NAIA is the good news. Going back in to leave is the bad news. No freeways lead to the airport. All streets and alleys are grid-locked. A plane that I once took for Hongkong had to sit for nearly two hours for 55 more passengers who got caught in traffic – and this was an 8AM flight! Outside the terminal discipline and crowd control have taken a vacation.. You leap into a jumble of vehicles, well-wishers, passengers, baggage handlers, peddlers and pickpockets, all clashing amid a torrent of horns, shouts, imprecations and whistles from hapless security guards trying to restore some sanity and order. Inside is more of the same as literally thousands try to get through two security alarms. Occasionally one is out of order. The time from last-of-the line to check in counter is close to two hours. Add one more hour in lining up at Immigration and you’re finally in the holding area with your boarding pass. And crossing your legs because there’s no water has stopped running in the rest room.
NAIA’s state of disrepair and obsolescence is indeed sad. One can travel all over Asia and not find a land with more spectacular scenery, more to do and see, nor a happier, livelier and lovelier people than in the Philippines. But until our airport is brought up to world-standards the Philippines shall always be for tourists, - the undiscovered country.