“IF IT ain’t broke, why fix it?”
So said Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia Friday, Aug. 2, 2019, after plans to rename the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) made headlines anew.
First-time legislator Lapu-Lapu City Rep. Paz Radaza filed House Bill (HB) 2222, which seeks to rename the MCIA into the Lapu-Lapu International Airport.
The name of the airport’s management, though, will remain as the Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA).
“As a courageous warrior, a protagonist who eventually became a national hero befits the righteous of naming the second busiest international airport in the country in his honor,” reads a portion of Radaza’s explanatory note.
On April 27, 1521, chieftain Lapu-Lapu fought foreign subjugation by defeating Portugese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in a skirmish labeled by historians as the “Battle of Mactan.”
But for the governor, who also sits as a member of the MCIAA, she would prefer the airport to keep the name of the province.
“Kung ilisdan ta pa na, mawa na ang pangan sa Cebu. Nindot man gyud nang pirmi madungog ang atong ngan kay (If we change that, it will omit the name of Cebu. It is always better to hear the name of the province since) it’s in everybody’s psyche,” Garcia said.
“If you ask me personally, I would wish for it to continue to be named as MCIA because that was how it had always been known and further, it recognizes the fact that the airport is in Cebu,” she added.
This, though, is not the first time a move to rename the airport was pushed.
In 2018, Rep. Raul del Mar (Cebu City, north district) was the principal author of HB 8170 that sought to amend Republic Act 6958, which created the MCIAA in 1990.
HB 8170 also proposed to change the word “Mactan” in MCIAA to Lapu-Lapu and to repeal correspondingly the name of the airport from MCIA to Lapu-Lapu Cebu International Airport.
At that time, del Mar had said honoring Lapu-Lapu and being consistent with the city’s name where the airport is located would serve two purposes.
First, it would give the native chieftain the recognition he deserved as the first recorded Filipino hero. Second, it also aimed to improve the choice of names of the authority overseeing the airport and the facility itself.
Del Mar, though, believed that keeping “Cebu” in the name of the airport and the authority that managed it would be “prudent and beneficial.” (RTF)