Monday, January 21, 2008 Editorial: DIA has gone to the rats, etc.
THE Davao International Airport may be one of the country's newest airports but it is already plagued with the problem of cockroaches, rats and waterless toilets, despite increasing fees.
No less than a ranking officer of the Davao Tourism Council, otherwise known to be a quiet and uncomplaining lady, is ruing over the sorry state of affairs in the P5.5 billion-airport.
Wanda T. Teo, tourism council vice chair, told newsmen Friday that the council and other travel and tourism players have been receiving an avalanche of complaints about the airport, especially about its sanitation.
Ironically, the Air Transportation Office, which oversees the operation of the facility, increased domestic terminal fee from P40 to P200 last year. Clearly the 500 percent increase in the fee is not for the improvement of the airport's amenities.
The terminal fee is not the only one increased by ATO, said Teo who also happens to be a concessionaire at the airport.
"Our monthly rental alone is already at P18,000 when it only used to be P5,000," she said.
Apart from the monthly rental fee, the concessionaires are made to pay the monthly electrical bill amounting to an average of P7,000 per month, garbage collection fees, and water bills.
One of the common complaints is the absence of water in most toilets of the airport.
"Madumi talaga ang airport," Teo said, adding that they have already raised the issue to the airport authorities but no action has been done yet. "They are not helping us," Teo said of the airport authorities' inaction.
Teo added that they tried to resolve the issue of pests on their own by hiring the services of a pest control firm, but it was not enough. "We would spray in our area, the cockroaches and the rats would just run to the other areas."
Department of Tourism-Southern Mindanao Chief Sonia Garcia promised to look into the issue and has already sought the assistance of the Manila International Airport Authority.
The DIA is still being subsidized by the national government. This means that the revenues collected by the airport are all remitted to the central office in Manila.
Still, it is time for ATO Regional Director Frederick Sanfelix, who is the airport manager, and his men to shape up.
