Stakeholders react on Cotabato airport’s closure for repair works

COTABATO CITY --- Members of business blocs here are ranting on what is for them unannounced temporary closure of the city’s airport in nearby Datu Odin Sinsuat town for runway repair works.

Officials of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao told reporters Saturday they were surprised too by the suspension since Thursday by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines of the flights from the Cotabato Airport to Metro Manila, the cities of Zamboanga and Cebu and to Bongao in Tawi-Tawi to pave the way for the runway rehabilitation project.

The Cotabato Airport is located northwest of Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao del Norte, about eight kilometers from the center of this city, where the capitol of BARMM is located.

Ronald Hallid Dimacisil Torres, chairman of the Bangsamoro Business Council, said Saturday they appreciate the plan of CAAP to have the airport’s runway fixed, but are worried of the effects of its sudden closure, without prior notice, to commerce and trade in Cotabato City and in the provinces of Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte, both in BARMM’s core territory, and in Sultan Kudarat and Cotabato in Region 12.

“For now we are focused on how to minimize the effects of this on businesses in the provinces of BARMM and its capital, Cotabato City. The closure of our airport will cause a drastic reduction in tourism and trading activities in BARMM,” Torres, a lawyer-entrepreneur, said.

Bangsamoro Transportation and Communications Minister Paisalin Pangandaman Tago said they are to fetch starting next week Moro pilgrims from Makkah in Saudi Arabia at the airports in the cities of Davao and General Santos City and shuttle them to Cotabato City as a contingency measure.

“Hundreds of them, residing in BARMM provinces around Cotabato City, will start arriving from the hajj in Saudi Arabia a week from now and their original return route, Manila-Cotabato, got closed,” Tago said.

Tago said he and his subordinate-directors in different MOTC-BARMM agencies were saddened by CAAP’s sudden closure of Cotabato City Airport to passenger planes.

“We are scrambling to put in place measures that can somehow lessen its effect on hundreds of pilgrims returning from the hajj in Makkah in Saudi Arabia,” Tago said.

Tago and the governor of Maguindanao del Norte, Abdulrauf Macacua, had separately urged for sobriety among pilgrims forced to change their routes in coming home.

Tago said all they want, for now, is for the contractor of the runway repair works to do “double time” in implementing the project.

Macacua told reporters he is hoping that the MOTC-BARMM and the CAAP can have a dialogue on the issue for the benefit of both sides and the business sector in Maguindanao del Norte and in Cotabato City.

“I am concerned too because the airport is in a municipality under the Maguindanao del Norte provincial government,” Macacua said.

Officials of an influential Chinese business group here said they are hoping for the completion of the airport runway rehabilitation sooner than expected.

“We are praying that the weather shall always be fine so that the repair works do not get disrupted,” said a Chinese owner of a big hardware store here, who asked not to be identified.