The National Honors Award Act Amendment was also introduced in the House and went through its second and third readings, since, according to the PM, time was of the essence, as September is quickly approaching. This bill will establish new national honors and awards to recognize Belizeans for bravery, courage, and patriotism. And the first recipient of this award will be pilot Howell Grange. The PM explained why they needed to amend the Act to include him:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"As we all know, I think it was last year in April when we had a person who had serious mental problems who tried to hijack one of our planes, a local flight. And we believe back then that Mr. Howell Grange acted with incredible bravery. He remained calm at all times and even played out with this person, letting him believe that the plane is going to the United States, talking in Spanish to let him believe they were in Mexico's airspace. And it required incredible bravery, incredible calm and to be cool during that time and even at the risk of his own life. I think he was stabbed a few times. But because of his act of bravery he managed to save pretty much all of the lives of the people in that plane. So when we wanted to give him a special award to recognize his bravery, it came to our attention that there is nothing with the different medals we have to fit him in to properly recognize what he has done. So what we are doing with this Honors and Awards Act is establishing a mechanism to recognize people who have rendered outstanding and meritorious service to our nation."
