Can't we learn a lesson how others do it efficiently? At Bangkok's Suvarnabhum airport.
Last Sunday, while we were approaching Manila from Bangkok aboard Thai Airways, we realized that we have not been given Disembarkation and Customs Declaration cards for us to fill up for submission to airport authorities upon arrival.
We asked the flight stewardess about it and she said there were no cards.
Upon our arrival, someone distributed the cards as we exited the tube to the NAIA 1 terminal. As expected, we all had to stop and fill out the cards.
A slight delay, actually, but an unnecessary inconvenience.
One foreigner was making nasty remarks about Filipino inefficiency. It hurt because it was true.
Having come from Bangkok, where airport and other travel services are so efficient, my friends and I thought the shortage of arrival cards is not just inefficiency. It’s stupidity.
It’s bad enough that we cannot compete with other countries when it comes to airport facilities but we should at least make things easy for travelers. Efficiency does not cost a lot of money. All that is needed is concern and common sense.
An airport employee told us that they had run out of cards because the printing of cards was sponsored by private firms. Someone surmised that the shortage must have something to do with the recall of cards with the face of cosmetic surgeon Vicky Belo.
The next day, I called up the Bureau of Immigration to find out about the shortage of cards. After several calls to numbers that nobody answered, I was able to contact the press office. Someone who said his name was ‘John’ something and a staff in that office said the arrival cards are the responsibility of the airport office.
I called up a lawyer-friend who now works with the Manila International Airport Authority which supervises NAIA1, NAIA2 (Centennial) and NAIA3. One of MIAA’s mandates is to “ Upgrade and provide safe, efficient and reliable airport facilities for international and domestic air travel.”
He said arrival cards are the responsibility of the Bureau of Immigration. I told him BI told me it’s the Airport Authority’s responsibility so please don’t refer me back to them.
Yesterday my friend referred me to NAIA1 manager Dante Basanta, who explained that the printing of arrival cards is the responsibility of Airline Operating Council, the association of airline operators. He said the Council is the one that supplies the airlines operating in the Philippines with the cards.
The Customs Declaration Card, on the other hand, is the responsibility of the Bureau of Customs.
Basanta said both the AOC and the BOC have a tie-up with Smart Communications for the printing and supply of cards. He surmised that either AOC didn’t supply Thai Airways with the necessary travel cards or the airline failed to get the cards from AOC.
He said he will call the attention of AOC because, as we told him, the inconvenienced traveler would not bother about AOC. They will just conclude that the Philippine government is hopelessly inefficient and corrupt, it can’t even have adequate supply of arrival and customs declaration cards.
