Philippine president orders probe into alleged bullet-planting at airport

For two straight years, the Manila Ninoy Aquino worldwide Airport was voted the worst airport in the world by the website Sleeping in Airports.

The job of airport security is to confiscate unsafe items from suitcases, but travellers have recently found the opposite is true in the Philippines' Manila Airport, where staff have allegedly been dropping bullets into the bags of unsuspecting passengers.

Under the scam, bullets are allegedly dropped in the luggage of passengers while they go through the security checks at the airport.

A similar proposal for an investigation was earlier made at the Senate by Senator Ralph Recto, who stressed the need for authorities to step in because "agencies operating [at the airport] have failed to curb the abuses on their own".

The American, the son of a missionary, vehemently denied the claim, saying he had no reason to carry a bullet in his luggage and that he came to the Philippines as a tourist to visit particularly the island province of Palawan.

The other recent arrestee, per the BBC, was Japanese tourist Kazunobu Sakamoto, who was taken into custody after two bullets were found in his luggage and he could not show documentation that he was authorized to carry ammunition.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that in September, a 20-year-old American man was detained for six days because he said he refused to pay a 30,000 peso penalty (£410), and an American woman in a wheelchair was forced to pay 500 pesos (£6) to be let off after two 22-Caliber bullets were found in one of the pockets of her luggage.

While authorities look for a solution that will put an end to this scheme, we asked netizensfor suggestions on what they can do to help stop "tanim bala" at our airports.

"There is no working system that is guarding the guards", he said in a statement. A spokesperson for the Office of Transportation Security told the global Business Times he was "alarmed" and concerned about how the bullet scam will affect tourism.

Surveillance at the airport has been stepped up since the complaints began and an investigation has been launched into the personnel accused of involvement.