GMA to Barbers: release P110M for Panglao Airport

PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has ordered the Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA) to release immediately P110 million to pay owners of lots where the Panglao International Airport will be constructed. Gov. Erico Aumentado said President Arroyo issued the order to PTA General Manager Robert Dean Barbers after meeting the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) board for over four hours last week.

Aumentado is among the latest additions to the Neda board the President chairs after she reconstituted it. The governor had been following up the release of the amount but Barbers apparently wanted an imprimatur from the President on top of the approval by the PTA board that had allocated the amount earlier. As such, he asked the President to instruct Barbers to cause the release of the amount already allocated by the PTA Board for the land acquisition of the Panglao International Airport Development Project (PIADP).

Former Tagbilaran City mayor and now Transportation Assistant Sec. Jose Torralba, the PIADP manager, and the Panglao Island Tourism Estate Task Force which Aumentado now chairs intend to complete the land acquisition within six months so that it can be bid next year. The Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) is now the lead agency in implementing the project. This after the President issued amendatory Memorandum Order No. 178-A making MIAA the lead agency for the PIADP as he suggested in his aide memoire during her last visit here.

President Arroyo and New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark had bilateral talks at the Bohol Beach Club on March 14 in the first-ever out-of-Manila state visit. In his aide memoire, Aumentado also told the President that the Provincial Government has released an initial P40,000 for the social preparation aspect of the PIADP. The provincial government will fund the social preparation requirements for the project as its counterpart in addition to the support services and facilities it is providing the PIADP Management Office, he said.

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