Thursday, April 24, 2008 Puentevella: Arroyo prefers sale of old Bacolod airport By Karl G. Ombion
BACOLOD Representative Monico Puentevella said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo prefers to sell the government share in the old Bacolod airport instead of keeping it for the possible re-opening of the airfield.
"I was told by the President that she prefers to sell it in order to raise money to pay the loan from the Japanese government for the construction of the new Bacolod-Silay airport," Puentevella said.
He added the sale of the old Bacolod airport was part of the loan deal with Japan because the new airport costs millions of pesos.
Puentevella, however, said Arroyo is open to other options, other than re-opening the airport, which could help the government generate funds to pay the loans for the new landing field and for other development projects in the province.
"One possibility that the President is quite open to is turning the old airport into an economic zone which I have already thought about and sounded aloud two years ago," Puentevella said.
He said converting the old airport into an ecozone, which could contain a five-star hotel, industrial processing plants, call centers and big malls, would generate billions of pesos for the city.
"If we could come up with a sound ecozone program for the old Bacolod airport, I am confident the President would be willing to agree on it."
Puentevella also said he would hold consultations with the group of Bacolod Councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, who earlier expressed their preference to turn the old airport into an ecozone, instead of re-opening it for commercial flight operations.
Batapa-Sigue earlier said an ecozone has more potential for growth and development than just keeping the facility as a commercial airport because the local socio-economic environment offers lots of favorable factors for growth.
Among the major favorable factors mentioned by the councilor was the presence of local business sector that is forward-looking in terms of business development and socio-economic growth; adequate number of professionals with expertise in economics, enterprise development and management; vast reserves of highly-skilled and motivated labor force; and a city government that has been giving enormous incentives to both Filipino-Chinese and foreign investors.
