If you didn’t know, there’s quite a lot happening at our airports recently. A technical issue caused a 6-hour power outage on Labor Day (of all busy holidays), a plane skidded off an Isabela airport, another 6-hour shutdown is planned for May 17, and the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) chief was recently suspended for dubious actions. Now it seems like the MIAA has appointed an Officer-In-Charge (OIC) to momentarily take over in this time of need.

But why exactly was MIAA Chief Cesar Chiong suspended in the first place? Well, the public statement is due to his suspicious reassignment of “285 certain MIAA employees.” Others saw this as a grave abuse of authority and immediately reported the General Manager. As a result, he was placed into a six-month preventative suspension without pay.

The man attempted to defend himself by stating that these decisions were made for the betterment of airport operations. Unfortunately, even his appointment was put into question which isn’t looking good for the government official.

Placed as OIC of the MIAA for now is Bryan Co, the agency’s Senior Assistant General Manager. He immediately spoke up on behalf of his agency, stating that there should be no issues navigating through the MIAA’s current plights such as power outages and other long-standing gremlins.

“We do not see any challenge, as long as we complete all the tasks mandated to us,” he said.