What’s up with new Mactan airport deal?

We did cause a stir in our May 8 column last Thursday when we opened the eyes of our air travellers to realize that the old Manila Domestic Terminal 4 at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) was far worse than the world’s worst airport, which is NAIA Terminal 1.

Quite coincidentally, my dear Brod, Babes Romualdez who also writes his column dubbed Spy Bits in the STAR also wrote a similar column entitled “The Sorry State of NAIA I.”  Babes’ opening statement read, “The horrible conditions at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) 1 terminal are driving public outrage and no amount of apology from the President, Transportation Secretary Jun Abaya or Manila International Airport Authority General Manager Jose Angel Honrado can appease the fury of passengers.” If NAIA 1 was horrible… you should see the Domestic Terminal 4!

I say that it was coincidental because I haven’t talked and texted Babes Romualdez for sometime now. But this just gives you an idea that things aren’t doing well at the NAIA, and instead of fixing the problem President Aquino has not cracked the whip against his incompetent “Bata-bata” and shown us that he doesn’t really care for the safety, comfort and convenience of the Filipino people and the tourists who visit our shores.

Lest you’ve already forgotten, our airports are the welcome mats of our country and therefore we must make an extra effort to present to our tourists a wonderful experience when they arrive in our country. But with the way the DOTC is handling our airports  those tourists are going to be “One-way” tourists… meaning they’ll come to our shores and enjoy our natural wonders, but when they leave for home, the great majority of these tourists would vow never to return to the Philippines again because our airports are rotten to the core! Yes! It’s no fun in the Philippines! That’s the DOTC slogan, which is exactly the opposite of the Tourism Department’s slogan.

This is what we get when the top people running our airports do not have any idea of how to run an airport. They are there because they are the “bata-bata” of the President. How many columnists have written about the state of our airports, but this administration doesn’t care. I have pointed out so many times before that in the next administration, the people who should be appointed to run our airports must come from the Hotel or Hospitality industry so that they’ll focus more on the comfort and convenience of our paying passengers, not just for foreign tourists, but for us Filipinos as well.

Meanwhile, last Tuesday at the 888 Forum at the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel, Mr. Andrew Acuaah-Harrison came back to this forum for the first time since the Megawide-GMR consortium, won and paid the P14.4 Billion for the expansion program of the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA). It was then that most of the Cebu media realized that the P14.4 Billion that the consortium paid to the Department of Transportation & Communications (DOTC) was just for the right to get that deal. Mr. Harrison said that to build the new airport, the consortium plans to spend P20 Billion!

This means that their getting this airport deal is costing the Megawide-GMR consortium P34.4 Billion. Yet, Sen. Serge Osmeña went out of his way to scuttle this deal by asking the Supreme Court (SC) to stop this obviously highly profitable transaction for the DOTC! At this point, we are waiting for the SC to rule on this petition filed by Sen. Serge Osmeña. If the SC rules in his favor… then it is the end of future foreign investments to the Philippines. After the botched PIATCO deal at the NAIA 3, no one would dare come to our shores… thanks to this suicidal political intervention.

Call it coincidental that on the very day that the report on the Megawide-GMR came out in The Freeman, on page 4 of the same paper, the news was bannered, “Rama gives ultimatum vs FLI on non-payment. This was the demand by Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama asking the Filinvest Land Incorporated (FLI) to pay at least P800 million for its joint venture agreement at the South Road Properties (SRP).

It just makes you wonder that Sen. Serge Osmeña tried to block the Megawide-GMR deal because he believes that they don’t have the financial capability to develop our airports and of course because he wanted the Filinvest-Changi who was the second placer in that airport deal to get the airport deal. Yet for a mere P800 million, FLI refused to pay the City of Cebu. Please Sen. Serge Osmeña, if you truly love Cebu City… then please tell your friends in Filinvest to pay for the land that they got in the SRP.

Meanwhile. We learned that from Mr. Harrison that the official turnover of the Mactan Terminal will be this coming October and construction could start by January next year. But I’m a superstitious man… there are still people who could put monkey wrenches to prevent Megawide-GMR from constructing the new airport terminal. When they do, we will expose them or worse file cases against these people who block Cebu’s progress.

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