We have all come across abandoned cars in parking lots. They are usually covered in dust and sometimes vandalized with obscene doodles. Their tires have gone completely flat. And they have legitimate license plates that make you wonder what happened to their owner.

I always see these at mall parking facilities. In fact, I can show you one right now at my favorite mall. Before, when I had a gambling addiction, I often spotted such vehicles at casinos. The questions my playful imagination could come up with are:

Did the owner die?

Did he/she disappear to avoid legal responsibilities?

Did he/she leave his/her world to start all over again?

Did he/she pawn the car to a loan shark and flee?

You know which places also have a lot of these abandoned vehicles? Airports. Think about it: The airport is a natural choice for an individual to desert a car if he/she intends to vanish for good. Maybe the act is not intentional. Maybe the person stumbled upon a good fortune while traveling abroad and decided not to come back. Considering the state of this country, this is not a difficult thing to picture.

The New NAIA Infra Corporation has now revealed that it just unearthed “over 20 abandoned vehicles, some dating back to as far as 2014, in various parking facilities across Ninoy Aquino International Airport.”

Needless to say, NNIC wants these vehicles removed from the airport parking facilities. The new airport operator sent us this quote:

“These abandoned vehicles are taking up space that should be available for passengers. They are also a security and safety concern, especially in their deteriorating states. We are waiving any applicable fees to encourage owners to reclaim them.”

I know the agony of having left a car in a paid parking lot. I once left mine for years and turned it over to the parking management when getting the car back was no longer economically feasible. Which brings me to the importance of parking space, but this topic deserves its own article.

It’s good that NNIC is waiving the parking fees that have been accumulated by the cars. What mostly prevents someone from getting an abandoned car—at least based on personal experience—is the cost of retrieving it.

NNIC is now doing more audits across all NAIA terminals, and would not be surprised if more abandoned cars turned up in the process.

If you have a car at the airport and are itching to get it, you just need to present proof of ownership and valid identification.

NNIC is now implementing a grace period (but hasn’t said what the exact time period is) before it will have the cars “towed and impounded at government facilities.”

Now let me go back to imagining possible reasons people leave cars at airports. Might be a potentially riveting screenplay I could sell to Netflix.