Weekend tourists

I have a feeling of being fully recharged like a battery after a weekend holiday vacation with my twin boys in Boracay. It was my first time to set foot at this once legally-challenged and structurally-rocked Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Passenger Terminal 3, or T-3 for short. I took a Cebu Pacific flight to Boracay, that’s why. For some time now, T-3 is being used for domestic flights of Cebu Pacific and some of its Asian routes.

I was very much impressed with what I saw at T-3. Having traveled to other countries, bragging aside, it struck me to see that T-3 is comparable with other international airports. While the T-3 is of world-class standard, including the comfort rooms, its modern facilities like the passenger tubes are not fully utilized since the airplanes are too small. So while passengers pass through the tube, they have to go down to get out and walk into the tarmac to board the plane.

After several false start-up in the past, the commercial operation of the T-3 is indeed a welcome development for our country’s tourism industry. But my goodness! The prices of food and other usual travelers’ stuff peddled at T-3 concessionaire outlets are not tourist-friendly.

Filipinos traveling to our prime tourist destinations like Boracay spend as much, if not more, than foreign tourists do in our country. So it is rather disappointing that such supposed tourism-related establishments are the ones that make it unattractive to travel to our country. This is why we often hear comments like “tourist prices” or prices that are too prohibitive – that only tourists could afford or only too willing to spend.

Which reminded me, how come President Arroyo has not signed yet into law the Tourism Code of 2009? It took several Congresses to pass this proposed legislation. It was only after the President certified this as urgent administration priority bill that it finally saw the light of day in Congress four years later.

Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Joseph Ace Durano has been under fire from certain quarters in the tourism and travel industries. Understandably so, because Durano has been quiet all these times while this proposed Tourism Code was squeezed through the legislative mills. Being a former congressman, Durano was expected to have at least exerted his influence, or at the most, strongly lobbied his erstwhile colleagues in Congress to help him get this Tourism Code passed sooner. Durano was scored for lack of leadership to have the Tourism Code approved, he, being the DOT Secretary. He is, as per Palace pronouncement, being groomed to run for the Senate in the 2010 elections.

I think I know where Durano is coming from on this issue. I distinctly remember Mrs. Arroyo when she first announced Durano to become her DOT Secretary. This was a few days after she was declared winner of the May 2004 presidential elections. In the presence of Durano, the Chief Executive told us while we were in Durano’s home province in Cebu: “He (Durano) has no tourism program to pursue but he will implement my tourism program.” What puzzles me now is the seeming foot-dragging of the President in approving the Tourism Code.

When I got to the T-3, I was surprised to see so many military men and women in camouflaged uniforms who bore shoulder insignias that were very familiar to me. The troopers belong to the Presidential Security Group. Aren’t they supposed to be at the nearby Villamor Airbase as they were used to be deployed in great numbers and logistics?

What I found odd while we were at T-3 was that the PSG troopers were taking commercial flights in several batches. Certainly, these commercial flights were paid for by taxpayers’ money. We were taking the Manila-Caticlan flight of the Cebu Pacific and some of the PSG troopers were also on our flight.

Mrs.Arroyo arrived in the island Saturday morning along with her husband, First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo and the rest of the First Family. President Arroyo hosted at the Shangri-La in Boracay the state dinner for visiting Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Michael Somare who flew in Manila Saturday. With her in Boracay were Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap and Trade Secretary Peter Favila.

Actually, the PSG troopers formed part of the “advance party” to secure the areas in Boracay where the presidential activities took place. I could still recognize some of them. Some of the PSG officers also recognized me as they warmly and amiably greeted me.

I reminisced with some of them how we Palace reporters had to take the very early morning, or at times dawn flights of C-130 to get ahead of the presidential entourage in provincial sorties that took our coverage literally from Aparri to Jolo. We rode in some of the refurbished US “hand-me-down” C-130 planes with the PSG troopers along with their K-9 bomb-sniffing dogs in their portable kennels. The last time I heard, there was still the Presidential Airlift Wing (PAW) which takes charge of the presidential choppers and a Fokker plane. I just don’t have any idea now on the whereabouts of this presidential Fokker plane.

Since she took office in January 2001, President Arroyo has been using private jets. As I understood it, the Office of the President charters or leases private jets for her use and her small party of travelers in these presidential out-of-town sorties.

I also fondly recall the times we joined the PSG troopers using the BRP “Ang Pangulo” presidential yacht. The presidential yacht was recently commissioned back to the Philippine Navy and rechristened as BRP “Ang Pag-asa” (HOPE). Perhaps, it was the ship I saw anchored in the middle of the Boracay waters while another Coast Guard patrol craft was near the shorelines.

While I am glad to note the PSG troopers are getting better transport for the President’s out-of-town travels, it, however, also means the PSG no longer has access to the air assets of the Philippine Air Force. That is, if the PAF still have any available C-130 plane. At least, PSG troop movements also become part of tourism income earned from weekend tourists like us.