After terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade  Center, many people shelved their domestic and international travel plans. My own son, who classifies as an American probinsiyano being born and raised in insular Ohio, and who never took to flying, finally found the perfect excuse to postpone a trip to the Philippines. Friends who had been looking forward to visiting their families in Manila cancelled their airline reservations. I knew that traveling after Nine-Eleven would be different, but I had no idea how much. As for it being dangerous, I am not quite willing to concede. Somehow, my mind refuses to accept that I put my life on the line whenever I step inside an airplane. With this attitude, my husband and I flew to Columbus, Ohio last April 2002, unwilling or unable to think we were taking a risk. More worried about whether the driver would get us to the airport on time, I had no time to think about bomb-throwing fellow passengers. It was not so much that I feared being blown up to bits; it was more that I could not conceive of any terrorist using the Manila-Ohio flight corridor to strike again. Besides, somehow I cannot imagine my body as a lifeless, bloody form. The possibility simply seems too remote, much like the image of an airplane flying directly into a concrete tower.

Departing from NAIA, however, emphasized for me the reality of the new way to fly. Here I heard a new verb, "to wand". Seeing that I did not understand what she meant, the airport inspector addressed me more explicitly: "May I have permission to wand?" to find out if she could pass the magnetic wand around my torso, my outstretched arms and legs. Of course, we had earlier been "patted" all over. In addition, my husband was asked to extend out the front of his trousers so the inspector could peer inside. After having been "wanded", we were asked to remove our shoes, an aftermath of the "Shoe Bomber" incident. We discalced not only once, but twice: immediately after we entered the secure area of the airport and again right before boarding the aircraft. I wore sandals for this purpose, but my husband who wore his hiking boots in an attempt at pa-porma, paid for it by having tolace and unlace his shoes twice.

We flew into Columbus, Ohio via Detroit, Michigan, on the Northwest Airline flight and I must have been more jet-lagged than usual because I did not notice the air marshals in the Columbus airport. I noticed them only two days later when we returned to the airport on our way back to Manila. The airport in Columbus, Ohio is not a major international hub like O'Hare in Chicago or Kennedy in New York. It is a small-scale operation with one concourse serving 22 boarding ramps located on one floor. In fact, Columbus residents used to wink when they say "Columbus International Airport", knowing that its grandiose name hardly matched its size. Minor renovations and modest expansions have not changed its character; it has remained user -friendly and easy to get around in, so it was a shock to see it last April 2002. Remember when American tourists used to make fun of Manila for the countless numbers of armed men in our public buildings? Now we can turn the tables on them when we see their airports. Tight security requirements have transformed minor American airports into armed camps teeming with uniformed air marshals. It all looks unreal as if it were all a game but we took it all in stride, thinking that we would quickly get through check-in, have a drink and hibernate in a corner to steal a few catnaps. It was not to be, for unfortunately, the airport computer randomly picked out our luggage for a thorough check. It meant tearing off tapes, opening boxes, taking out contents, unwrapping each item, then fitting them back, and taping the boxes again. One look at my two Balikbayan boxes, taped like mummies, led a surly inspector to decline the job, saying that there was not enough time to check them as thoroughly as required. I was more stressed out by him than by the thought of any terrorist because he could have made us miss our flight. I was relieved when another inspector proved undaunted by my boxes, although I felt sorry for her when she had to lift out a microwave oven, bottles of salad dressing, dozens of books, etc. and fit them back in again. She cheerfully re-packed every article into the box and then just as meticulously taped the boxes shut. I was pleasantly surprised when each of the boxes arrived in one piece at NAIA.

After we were cleared at the check-in, I thought we were home free, but I was wrong. Each of us was stopped two more times: my husband who routinely fails the magnetic barrier because of forgotten pens or coins in his pockets, and I for a pair of small embroidery scissors. Up until this time, I had been indifferent and pliant, knowing that all these procedures were necessary for security reasons, but when the inspector confiscated the scissors, I almost lost it. Those scissors belonged to my mother, a precious heirloom. Besides, they were too small to hurt anyone, yet the inspector ignored a much larger object that I was carrying in the same bag, a sharp metal tool that manicurists use for digging into the sides of one's nails  They were definitely more harmful than my mother's miniature scissors. In their haste to show concern for travelers' safety, airports have been too quick to employ personnel who are inadequately trained. The inspector's failure to spot the manicurist's sharp metal tool was just as disquieting as another inspector's unfamiliarity with the intricacies of a video camera bag. She was posted at the boarding platform, the last barrier to entering the aircraft. As she fumbled with my husband's video camera bag and its numerous compartments and elaborate closing straps, it was obvious that she was totally unfamiliar with such a piece of luggage. My husband had to show her how to open and close the compartments. Had he been a terrorist who had stuffed components of a bomb into the different pockets of his bag, he could have easily slipped them into the airplane.

If the airport inspectors' obsession with small sharp objects was frustrating, Northwest Airline's over-reaction was comical. How else can you explain substituting plastic knives for metal ones, at the same time retaining the standard airline metal fork? My husband and I estimated that the metal fork could do more damage than the knife and wondered what a terrorist could accomplish with a short table knife. What's more, the plastic knife was esthetically out of place on a table service with crisp white linens. One wonders whether NWA executives discussed the policy thoroughly before deciding on it or whether they just gave in to the first knee-jerk reaction that came along. They saw the word "knife" and automatically pronounced "danger!" no matter its size.

In any case, our trip was uneventful and we landed smoothly and safely in NAIA. No innocent looking fellow passenger metamorphosed into a scissor-wielding fatalist, and once again, Filipinos in the control tower demonstrated their unerring competence even with NAIA's outdated equipment!

© 2005-2006 Violeta P. Hughes-Davis
All rights reserved.