Knucklehead Award Friday Part Eighteen

For the second time today, We travel to The Philippines for an award. Our Eighteenth winner is Erlinda Vergara of Bacolod City Philippines. She gets the award for the following.

A Hollywood thriller almost became a reality when a 41-year-old woman bound for Bangkok was arrested after more than 100 snakes and other deadly reptiles were found in her luggage by Customs and airport security personnel at the Manila airport.

Erlinda Vergara of Bacolod City was arrested at a baggage check-in counter at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Centennial Terminal at around 10 a.m. Tuesday. She was booked on Philippine Airlines flight PR 730.

Air travel marred by vicious reptiles is a new type of nightmare popularized recently by the movie "Snakes on a Plane’’ starring Samuel Jackson.

Customs examiner Cairoden Mangaron said he noticed something suspicious and seemingly moving inside Vergara’s big suitcase when it passed through a baggage x-ray machine.

When he opened the bag, Mangaron found 52 plastic bottles containing different kinds of snakes and reptiles. Some of the creatures were dead.

A partial inventory by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Wildlife Trafficking Monitoring Unit agents at the NAIA Terminal II showed the creatures consisted of 50 monitor lizards, 39 cobras, two iguanas, 16 big vipers, and eight small vipers.

Theodore Agir of the NAIA-DENR-WTMU said the inventory was incomplete because some of the seized creatures were venomous and required expert handling.

Vergara later told police the suitcase was only entrusted to her by a friend from Bacolod City, whom she declined to name.

Sure Ms. Vergara. If I was facing time for something a 'friend' did to me without my knowledge, I wouldn't be protecting them. You Erlinda Vergara are both a liar and today's eighteenth Knucklehead of the day.