NEWS

By Myla Iglesias

The local government of Cavite and a private company are considering to form an alliance to speed up the construction of an international gateway in Sangley Point, Cavite, according Secretary Arthur Tugade of the Department of Transportation.

Tugade said he sees no problem with the possible partnership between the Cavite and the Solar Group which separately had offered to build an international gateway in Sangley.

The P500-billion Sangley International Airport proposal of the Cavite provincial government is yet to be approved by the National Economic and Development Authority due to various issues: incomplete documents, funding source and unclear implementing arrangement for the project.

Tugade’s deadline for the Cavite provincial government to fix these issue lapsed last July.

Besides the Cavite government, Solar Group’s All-Asia Resources and Reclamation Corp. (AARC) had a similar unsolicited proposal to develop Sangley into an international airport. This was submitted to the DOTr as far back as 2016.

The project was estimated to cost $12 billion.

A crucial portion of the ARRC development plan is the rehabilitation of the Danilo Atienza Air Base and its transformation into a general aviation airport that can serve as an emergency alternative to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) during the project development phase.
ARRC proposed a concession period of 50 years for the Sangley International Airport.

Under the proposal, the project will start with the reclamation of about 2,500 hectares of land north of the Sangley Peninsula which will be used for the development of the airport infrastructure and a commercial establishment to complement the project.

Sangley Airport would be designed with two parallel runways and sufficient airside and terminal capacity to accommodate future demand for the domestic and the international traffic, not only for the Philippines but also for Southeast Asia.

Sangley Airport is an important alternative for NAIA.

In June, President Duterte ordered the transfer of domestic flights from NAIA to Sangley Air Base to ease airport congestion.

Aside from Sangley, DOTr has been pushing to have multiple airports near Metro Manila to address the anticipated growth in passenger traffic in the coming years.

With this, the DOTr is expected to start the construction of the P735-billion new international airport in Bulacan by the fourth quarter of the year. The Clark International Airport’s new terminal is also expected to completed and operational by June or July next year.

Source: Malaya