THE Department of Transportation (DOTr, formerly known as DOTC) is pushing for the privatization and upgrading of the Davao International Airport (DIA) within the first 100 days of the Duterte administration.
DOTr undersecretary for Aviation lawyer Roberto Lim told reporters at the sideline of the 8th General Membership Meeting of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (DCCCII) at the Grand Regal Hotel last August 27 that the upgrading of DIA will be included in their report to President Rodrigo Duterte.
“We are pursuing multiple tracks -- one is to deal with short term issues, in aviation, in the pipeline is the privatization of Davao airport,” he said.
DIA is presently in the pipeline for major upgrading under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Project. It is included in the P108.19 billion bundled maintenance project for five regional airports.
The bundled maintenance project for the five regional airports includes the P40.57 billion development of DIA.
The Davao Airport Operations, Maintenance and Development Project, currently undergoing procurement procedures, aims to provide additional facilities and other improvements designed to enhance passenger safety, security, access, passenger and cargo movement efficiency, and operational efficiency under a defined concession period. Such improvements have been indicatively estimated to cost P40.57 billion
But, the DOTC has delayed the bid submissions and its latest bid bulletin did not set any specific deadline.
At present, a total of six firms were identified by the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center as project prospects to pre-qualify and bid. These are the GMR-Megawide, Metro Pacific-JG Summit Consortium, Aboitiz Equity Ventures, San Miguel Corporation, Philippine Skylanders Inc., and Union Equity.
Lim said that they target to enable all the bidders to submit their financial bid sometime in October of this year.
Aviation industry status
Lim said that to provide a better and more efficient aviation infrastructure is the major challenge of the airline industry in the country.
Lim also said that the domestic tourists have grown so much, as well as the foreign tourism.
“It is vibrant, young, competitive airline industry,” he said.
He added that the airline industry has been growing for the past 10 years with the accumulation of the policy and general business environment.
Lim emphasized that he believes the present administration brings with it a policy that will continue to nurture the airline industry.
“One of its efforts are open new airports, use existing facilities to deliver better service such as Clark and Mindanao airports,” Lim said.
DIA as an international gateway
Much can be done to improve DIA, Lim said.
In his presentation during the meeting on the Mindanao Integrated Transportation Planning, Lim underscored that to make Davao as an international gateway, legal infrastructures, public and private sector partnership and more tourism activities should be secured.
Lim has cited that there are already legal infrastructures in the system.
For instance, Executive Order No. 29 s. 2011 has already authorized the “Civil Aeronautics Board and the Philippine Air Panels to pursue more aggressively the international civil aviation liberalization policy.”
At present, a total of 34 countries have the capacity entitlements to and from Davao and 21 countries with unlimited capacity entitlements for the city.
More than legal infrastructure, Lim said a combination of public and private activities, investment in hotels and tourism activities are needed.
“We just need more investments in the city to make it a more attractive destination, also need infra to connect Davao to other places. In order to make more Davao attractive you have to have tourism activities, work with airline companies to promote Davao as destination,” he said.
Also, he has mentioned that the Davao-Clark route is eyed to be revived within the year. (ASP)