Letdown
Some of the staff working at this airport reflect badly on the Philippines and the Filipino people. Going through the initial baggage scan at the entrance to the airport on the early afternoon of Friday, 6 December 2013, my bag got caught up in the conveyor belt and some of the items in it ended up under the mechanism. The staff member just stood to the side and directed me to retrieve them myself, which I tried to do and gave up on looking for a couple of items that were way too far for me to see or reach.
At 2:25 in the afternoon on Friday, 6 December 2013, I made my way down to Gate 9. I had to carry my carry-on luggage down a flight of stairs. Immediately before me was a male passenger. There was a male staff member sitting at the table to the entrance of Gate 9 who viewed passports and boarding tickets. The male passenger went on to the female staff members at another table for luggage check. The male staff member at the first table addressed the male passenger's back and said: 'Do you have a problem? You banged your passport and your luggage. Do you have a problem with us?' This, he said in a confronting, challenging manner. He then asked me if I was with the male passenger and I wasn't. I wondered whether it was any of his business if I was. I told him he was supposed to be courteous to passengers and proceeded to have my luggage checked.
Nowhere else in the civilised world where I have been (I have been to many countries) have I seen such behaviour and attitude from an airport staff member. It wasn't only confronting and rude, it also gives the Philippines and its normally lovely and accommodating people a bad image. Just when the rest of the world is rallying to help a small country down on its knees (Tacloban & Haiyan/Yolanda), behaviour like this by members of international airport staff members is unacceptable and shameful.
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