Even a well-guarded facility like the Tagbilaran City airport is no longer safe to thieves. The latest case of thievery in this city was the latest addition to the growing list of theft cases, most of them still unsolved. The break-in of the city airport came at a time when Tagbilaran was tagged by a local paper as crime city in reference to the series of killings, snatchings and robberies. In trying to calm a frightened citizenry, City mayor Dan Lim assured residents that the local police were on top of the situation. “The crime situation is not as critical as many of our critics would like to portray,” the city mayor declared in an interview over Station DYTR. But he warned all those responsible for giving a black mark to the good image of the city to behave before any drastic action will be carried out.

AIRPORT THEFT

The latest of several theft cases in this city involved the loss to burglars of runway equipment that included two isolation transformers of Pre-session Approach Path Indicator (PAPI); six aluminum parts and fixtures of threshold lights at Runway 17; six isolation transformers of Runway 17's threshold lights; eight runway lights fixtures; and 34 isolation transformers of runway lights. In carting away the runway lights, the thieves broke their glass covers. In an incident report to Francis Diez, officer-in-charge, Electromechanical Section of the Air Navigation Service, Air Transportation Office (ATO), Antonio Albit of ATO-Tagbilaran, reported the theft after he learned that the runway lights were no longer functioning as hey used to be. It was discovered when the PAPI 17 was switched on to check if they were still operational. There was no mention how much the damage in pesos per incident report. The same report was noted by Edgar Solis, airport manager. But a separate police blotter indicated the cost of the stolen runway lights and transformers which ran to more than P2 million.

According to the same incident report, the Constant Current Regulator or CCR indicated an open circuit at PAPI 17, after immediately switching it off. In an interview with Solis over Station DYTR, he denied insinuations that laxity of the guards was a factor in the loss of the airport equipment. The security requirement of the airport is provided by the Cebu-based Sikatuna Security Agency. Reports reaching the Post indicated that the reason why the security guards appeared to be remiss in their duties to secure the airport from break-ins was that they were not paid on time. A security guard belonging to the agency admitted that their salaries were sometime delayed up to 15 days. This was however denied by Solis. As this developed, Cong. Edgar CHatto chair of the House committee on tourism sought for an immediate investigation. Part of Chatto's budget was used to purchase the stolen runway items.