I'M breaking into my three-part series because an amazing thing happened last week: 160 (as of now) businessmen stood up against a decision the Ombudsman made. He dismissed the general manager of the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA), Cesar Chiong, and the assistant general manager, Irene Montalbo. It seems he acted on false information from a few disgruntled employees. When they heard this, those few employees he acted on were hugely overridden by 800 employees who called for Chiong's and Montalbo's return to office. We 160 agree with them. So I hope in a re-examination of the situation the Ombudsman too will agree that they should be reinstated. Chiong and Montalbo have in a few short months accomplished much positive change in an airport badly in need of it after years and years of neglect.

Those changes included reassignment of a number of personnel to a new task with no loss of rank or salary, yet these few complained. Moving personnel around is a normal management function and internal control practice. And something previous MIAA managers have done. Perhaps the Ombudsman was not aware of that.