ILIGAN City ― The word “outage” was used in connection with what happened at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila on January 1. Because of that “outage” in the power aspect, thousands of flights in and out of the country, and even within the country that day were canceled.

To the inconvenience of hundreds of thousands of travelers. Not only in NAIA. But in other airports, as well. My friend Erika who had a flight to Laguindingan, Misamis Oriental, had to go back to this city. (By the way, I have observed that the said Laguindingan airport is referred to as ‘Cagayan de Oro Airport’ in various airports. To the amusement, maybe, of people there in CDO.)

Although she was able to fly back to Manila on the 3rd of this month.

The CAAP people or the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said among other things during the Senate hearing Thursday that “unfortunately we don’t have any CCTV coverage inside the equipment room, but in other areas of the facility, we have.”'

To recall, it was reported that on January 1, a power outage downed the air navigation facilities leading to the diversion, cancellation, and postponement of hundreds of flights.

Now, in the US, a similar thing happened… Flights in the US were grounded on Jan. 11 following a catastrophic computer ‘glitch.’ The Federal Aviation Administration there then was forced to ground hundreds of flights, sparking widespread travel chaos after a problem with the system that alerted pilots to potential hazards. Social media users debated then as to what really happened. What was behind such an outage?

But the White House, it was reported, denied a “cyber attack”

It was then learned that the FAA said on its website its Notice to Air Missions systems had “failed” which contains information essential to workers involved in flight operations. What’s really the truth behind all things like these?

In said “'denial of said cyber attack” and the likely “truth” behind all that, I remember a quote which says about it: “The truth is so precious that it has to be protected by some bodyguard of lies.” I think this is attributed to an American journalist, Bernard Kalb, who at 100 recently died.

Filipinos then can take comfort and maybe say that “we are not alone in this kind of problem or misery.”

This means, there’s some kind of logic in the saying that “misery loves company.”