Airport authorities renewed warnings to passengers to be wary of items other people asked them carry into the country for them, lest the article turns up to be a prohibited object.
Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) General Manager Ed Monreal once again issued an appeal to passengers check their bags or make sure that items being sent through them are free of any prohibited item after a Filipino-American passenger who arrived in the Philippines last July 2 was held for questioning by authorities for bringing into the country 416 pieces of .38 calibre empty shells in her baggage.
Under Philippine rules, ammunition for firearms — whether they are complete, or simply individual components such as empty cartridges, slugs, powder charge, primers, among others, are among the items passengers are prohibited from bringing into the airport.
Security screeners stopped the unnamed passenger at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 2 after the empty ammunition shells were monitored by airport baggage screeners.
“During routine X-ray inspection, screening officers Dominic Charize Almazan monitored an image resembling a large amount of ammunition in the baggage of a passenger bound for Laoag (Ilocos Northern Philippines). Airline and security personnel were asked to locate the owner before subjecting the baggage to manual inspection,” Monreal said.
The passenger turned out to be a Filipina with US citizenship who arrived on board a flight from Honolulu, Hawaii and has a connecting flight to Laoag.
During manual inspection carried out by airport personnel in the presence of the passenger, the baggages yielded 416 pieces of spent cartridges which were placed in a transparent plastic bag placed inside a box.
“The passenger disclosed during the inquiry that the box belonged to her brother-in-law who requested her to bring it. She further claimed that she was assured that only clothes were inside the box,” Monreal said.
Since the items found were in the list of articles passengers are prohibited from bringing into the country through the airports, these were confiscated for records purposes.
“The passenger was later allowed to take her connecting flight to Laoag,” Monreal said.
The MIAA and other airports in the country had been very careful in handling incidents concerning firearms ammunition supposedly found among items carried by passengers following a controversy concerning “bullet planting” extortion incidents that victimised a number of flyers using Philippine airports several months ago.
Several airport personnel, including some from the police, were sacked after investigations found out that a rogue employees had been intentionally placing bullets in the belongings of passengers with the intention of extorting from them.
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