MANILA, Philippines – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has designated Eric Jose Castro Ines as acting general manager of the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA), the government-owned and -controlled corporation that oversees the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, the Philippines’ main gateway.

A press release from the Presidential Communications Office on Thursday, December 21, said he will also be a member of the MIAA’s Board of Directors.

Malacañang describes him as an airport operations expert who has been in the industry for decades.

His portfolio includes the following:

• trainee for airline operations of Gulf Air from 1986 to 1987
• senior security officer of Gulf Air in Manila and Southeast Asia from 1988 to 1997
• airport station manager of the Etihad Airways and Gulf Air in Manila from 1997 to 2016.

Ines went to the University of the Philippines for his tertiary education. Malacañang said he completed a course on airport and airline management and aviation security at the Bailbrook College School of Aviation in the United Kingdom. 

There is little information about him available online, which indicates he has mostly kept a low public profile.

A few news reports in the past have quoted him on issues involving airlines he was associated with, such as when a woman was suspected to have killed her newly born child while aboard an Etihad Airlines plane in 2008, or when a passenger plane operated by Gulf Air crashed in Bahraini territory in 2000, killing 143 people, including a Filipino.

Ines was also senior executive assistant to the secretary of the defunct-Department of Local Government and Community Development from 1973 to 1986, under the administration of then-President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

Ines is replacing Cesar Chiong, who was dismissed from service by the Ombudsman in August for grave misconduct, abuse of authority, and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service.

Ines is inheriting an agency that was in crisis, as some MIAA employees opposed Chiong’s dismissal, and as the bidding for the rehabilitation of one of the world’s “most stressful” airports continues. – Rappler.com

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