Three airport staff have been fired after allegedly trying to plant a bullet in a passenger's bag to extort bribes from her.

The officials are said to have pulled aside Ruth Adel, 69, after she had gone through security scanners at the notorious Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Manila, the Philippines.

Ruth feared she would miss her flight with her family to Vietnam on March 6.

She said that the Department of Transportation's Office of Transport Security (DOTr-OTS) approached her at the boarding gate, claiming she had the armoury in her bag.

Security officers told her that their X-ray scanners had detected a bullet casing inside her luggage.

Ruth initially thought she was being pranked, as the officers made the allegation 'very casually'. When she denied the claim, the crew urged her to go with them to have her luggage inspected.

With only six minutes left before the plane's takeoff and boarding already underway, Ruth refused to leave and asked the personnel to check her bag on the spot instead.

The authorities showed the family an X-ray image the claimed was revealing the bullet casing.

Footage shows Ruth and her family showing items from her handbag while personnel seemingly laughed and hid their nameplates on their uniforms.

The physical inspection of the bag did not find any of the items they were looking for.

Ruth said: 'I have never seen a bullet in real life, so it's impossible that the supposed contraband was mine.'

The family asked NAIA security why, if there was indeed a spent bullet in their luggage, they had not been stopped at the first X-ray checkpoint that detected it rather than at the boarding gate.

Ruth claimed that the airport personnel did not even apologise for the inconvenience they caused, and she said the incident raised her blood pressure.

The traveller also accused the crew of trying to extort her by planting a bullet and hen demanding bribes.

Ruth said: 'I knew that this wasn't mine. I've also heard about similar scams that airport staff have done at this facility.

'I was furious that they were accusing me of having a bullet in my bag.'

The family was able to catch their flight and reach their destination.

On Monday, three employees were reportedly fired and relieved of their duties for the alleged attempted scam, which is known locally as 'Tanim-bala'.

Transportation Secretary Vince Dizon said: 'Appropriate investigations will be conducted, and the proper administrative charges will be filed after the investigation. But now we are terminating those employee's already today.'

'Tanim-bala' is a notorious scam that surfaced in the Philippines in 2015, where airport security personnel allegedly plant bullets in passengers' luggage to extort money from them at NAIA.

American luggage app Bounce listed the Ninoy Aquino International Airport as the world's worst airport for business class travellers in 2022. It ranked bottom 38th out of 38 busy airports all over the world.

In 2024, it was ranked '4th worst airport in Asia' for business travellers by UK website businessfinancing.co.uk, citing passenger reviews for international airports from airlinequality.com.