Trade and Industry Updates: Bohol

GMA arriving Tues. to kick of airport

ALL SET. The time capsule laying ceremony for the proposed P4.2 billion Panglao Bohol International Airport will be on this site in Tawala, Panglao where Pres. Arroyo (inset) will be the guest of honor on Tuesday, 10 a.m.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will lead the capsule-laying rites Tuesday to break ground for the P4.2-billion Panglao Bohol International Airport Development Project (PBIADP).

The President Management Staff (PMS) confirmed the President’s attendance in the activity after she decline the May 8 schedule set earlier because of other equally pressing commitments.

Ms. Arroyo was supposed to be the guest of honor and speaker during the Bohol-Jiangxi Friendship Day celebration. The day commemorates the singing of a friendly province relations agreement on May 8, 2006 in Nanchang, the capital city of Jiangxi. Aumentado and then Gov. Huang Zhiquan signed the document.

This agreement “sealed” the memorandum of friendly exchange and cooperation between the two provinces that Aumentado and Meng Jian Zhu, then chair of the Standing Committee of the Jiangxi Provincial People’s Congress on September 6, 2005 at Metro Center Hotel in Tagbilaran City. Meng is now the PROC minister of public security.

Aumentado and a delegation returned to Nanchang City where, on October 28, 2006, he and Huang signed the framework agreement on further enhancing friendly exchange and cooperation between the two provinces, this time witnessed by President Arroyo and Meng.

He said the framework defines in clear terms the areas of cooperation in tourism including the establishment of a sister-mountain relationship between Bohol’s Chocolate Hills and Jiangxi’s Mt. Lushan, agriculture, mining, education, culture and sports.

At the capsule-laying ceremony, Ms. Arroyo will be assisted by Transportation and Communications Secretary Leonardo Mendoza, Aumentado, General Manager Alfonso Cusi of the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) and Panglao Mayor Benedicto Alcala.

Cusi has committed that the P3 billion payables of the Philippine Airlines (PAL) to MIAA will form part of its corporate funds to be spent for the Panglao Airport. During the last meeting of the Panglao Island Tourism Estate Inter-Agency Task Force at the Panglao Island Nature Resort (PINR) in Bingag, Dauis, Bohol, DOTC committed to shoulder the balance of P1.2 billion.

As the major funder, MIAA sought to be the lead agency in the implementation of the project and subsequent operation – a request that the President approved – thereby ironing out what was perceived to be a kink before.

Most Rev. Leonardo Medroso, bishop of Tagbilaran has been invited to deliver the invocation while Alcala will give the welcome remarks.

MIAA Assistant General Manager for Airport Development and Corporate Affairs Tirso Serrano will give the project brief while General Manager Alfonso Cusi and Aumentado will deliver messages.

Mendoza will introduce the President who will deliver her keynote speech. A joint press conference will follow.

Cabinet meeting not only Mendoza is expected on Tuesday. As in her April 29 visit, Ms. Arroyo will also hold a Cabinet meeting.

But contrary to last month’s venue, which was the ferry that brought the President party to Camiguin, the PMS is now finalizing the meeting place, which is gravitating towards the PINR.

Preparations indicate that the Cabinet meeting will be in the afternoon, capped with a luau in the evening.

Barring changes, the President will rest overnight (RON) in Bohol, and participate in a private diving activity at the Balicasag Island Dive Resort – one of the Top 3 dive sites in the world, Aumentado quoted her as saying.

She is slated to leave for Mindanao at lunchtime or in the afternoon.

posted by dtibohol @ 2:29 PM