Do we have to upgrade our Air traffic Service?  

Just recently, the Philippines was downgraded to category 2 by the ICAO. It means flying within the Philippine skies is not that safe.

Although we definitely cannot say that our air traffic service providers are inefficient, perhaps is because of our equipment. We, the Philippine ATS providers, still use equipments long have been junked by other countries. Other southeast Asian countries are already using CPDLC (Computer Pilot Data Link Communications) for enroute flights while we, still use the conventional Very High Frequency and High Frequency transceiver. Every now and then we still even have to notify our neighboring country that our VHF or HF system is "again" down until further advise. How sad..

What's worse, we have had such a number of highly technical people going out of the country just in search for a greener pasture. One main reason is the low pay. Can you imagine working a job considered as one of the most stressful one and you get paid for like four hundred dollars?

I think upgrading our service would be to upgrade everything in it and that includes the equipment and upgrading the pay of these lowly employees who, as one foreign pilot said, "these guys are doing so much for so little."

If you drive a car and you cannot see any road signs, that would be a hard time driving. But if you are a pilot and you cannot be provided with an Air traffic Service it would definitely be different scenario, I guess..