President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has formally upgraded the Panglao Airport to Panglao International Airport and designated the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) to fund principally the multi-billion-peso project.

This was announced by Gov. Erico B. Aumentado, chair of the Panglao Island Tourism Estate Task Force (Pite-TF) yesterday. Aumentado said the President amended Memorandum Order (MO) 178-A series of 2006 for the purpose. The memorandum, he added, established the Panglao Tourism Special Infrastructure Program (PTSIP) with Panglao Airport as the flagship project. In directing MIAA to fund the Panglao Island Airport Development Project (PIADP), President Arroyo explained that under Executive Order No. 341, series of 2004, she authorized and directed MIAA to exercise administrative supervision and control over all international airports in the Philippines. The amendatory memorandum can now authorize MIAA to use its corporate funds and outsource the cost of the PIADP.

ARROYO

MIAA has a net earning of about P7 billion under General Manager Alfonso Cusi who committed to push the project during the recent PIite TF meeting at the Flushing Meadows Resort and Playgrounds in Barangay Dao in Dauis town.

It will be recalled that when President Arroyo visited Panglao town last March where she and New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark had bilateral talks in the first ever out-of-Manila state visit, Aumentado had suggested amendments to MO 178-A to her.

In his urgent aide memoire, the governor said DOTC and MIAA are now the main proponents of the PIADP, and that MIAA has been tapped, with her permission, by Mendoza and the Coordination Committee to fund principally PIADP since MIAA has jurisdiction over international airports in the country under its charter.

Aumentado told the President that he has met with MIAA General Manager Alfonso Cusi on the matter and that the latter is prepared to implement the project.

Since Section 6 of MO 178-A reads: "Funding. The DBM Secretary shall regularly release the allotments and disbursement authority intended for projects under the PTSIP, as authorized in the General Appropriations Act, covering both loan proceeds and local fund counterparts, and from the budgets of DOTC, PTA, DOT, ATO and PPA," the governor said there seems to be a need to amend MO 178-A - to include MIAA among the sources of funding for the PIADP.

Once included in the enumeration of line agencies to provide funding for the project, MIAA can already use its corporate funds, make a concessional loan or float bonds for the purpose, the aide memoire read.

Meanwhile, Transportation and Communications Sec. Leandro Mendoza ordered the release of P25 million to jumpstart the Panglao International Airport which Assistant Sec. Jose Torralba announced during the same Pite-TF meeting.