The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) formally launched the Competency-Based Training and Assessment (CBTA) for the country's aviation industry during a program held at Casa Ibarra in Pasay City on Tuesday.

According to CAAP Deputy Director General for Operations Lt. Gen. Rozzano Briguez, the objective of the CBTA is to enhance the training and evaluation of aviation personnel's capabilities by focusing on actual knowledge, skills, and behavioral attitudes in operations, rather than relying solely on the number of training hours.

"In our CBTA that we launched today, actually the context of it, I'll just use the three major foundations of our ecosystem: Our foundation's pilots, air traffic controllers, and our maintenance personnel," Briguez said in an ambush interview.

"So those three, we are the ones who regulate. After that, those three, our providers, they are the ones who train because they are in charge of their operational excellence. And at the same time, they produce competent graduates for us to use in our industry," Briguez added.

The training and assessment is part of the Philippines' preparation for the International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) scheduled implementation of CBTA standards within the next two years.

"For CBTA, the International Civil Aviation Organization will be having, in two years from now, a rollout of our CBTA Framework. This is how we adjust because our civil aviation has become more complex now," Briguez said.

"Before, the procedures were simple. Before, we were just task-based. After a number of hours, we check it. Once the checklist is okay, they perform it, it's okay. But now, it's more complex, it's different," he added.

At the same time, CAAP also launched the Hybrid Implementation Model, which will maintain the current Pilot Proficiency Check system while gradually integrating competency-based assessment to ensure a smooth transition for the aviation sector.

Prior to implementation, CAAP conducted eight orientation seminars for inspectors, examiners, and instructors from different parts of the country, and also prepared the necessary regulations and assessment tools for the program.

For his part, CAAP Technical Consultant Capt. Dexter Comendador said that unlike before today's training and assessment covers nine areas of competency—including decision-making, leadership, automation, how they perform manually, knowledge and skills.

"We can see that we are really training our people how to be competent in those areas. We have what we call observable behaviors, so that when they are rated there, they can be resilient and they can be attuned to our situations. These are not just normal situations that they can do, but abnormal and emergency situations that they can adjust," Comendador stressed.

"This is our actual competency-based training and assessment. We train our pilots, cabin crew, maintenance, and our air traffic controllers. Is it just personnel? No, we train personnel. We regulate and ensure safety. They are the ones who provide services to our flying public to ensure safe transportation, safe, efficient, and seamless. We train them how to evaluate them, how to regulate them, and we also train them how to observe our CBPA framework," Comendador added.