It's like awaking from a deep afternoon slumber - and suddenly - seeing the burst of the first rain in June - after a scorching summer heat.

Finally, one realizes it is no longer a dream. This much-coveted Panglao Airport with international standards is now within reach.

So much hype, hooplah and razzmatazz have been heard about the birth of an airport that will do justice to the immensity of the tourist potential of the Panglao Island. The Tourism Great Leap Forward, remember?

Funding, as in any ambitious project, is a critical point. In fact, without funds, all plans are just pipe dreams or propaganda bombast. There are issues of foreign sources (and foreign exchange risk attendant to dollar-denominated funds) and the issue of counterpart funding in a deficit-stricken government. There would be jealousy why so much from the "tourism pot" should go to one province. And so forth.

We almost gave up. But not today.

Our modest exposure to banking and finance convinces us the funding formula may have been found. Eureka!

Airports and infrastructure, as you know, are public sector investment to hasten the economic growth. But as investments, the returns are quite invisible - it does not all return to government. The taxes government can derive from the businesses that benefited from the infrastructure (airport) are the only tangible return on investments, so to speak.

The others trickle down to private sector profits, employment generation and enhancement of image of the Philippines as a tourist haven.

Since the Panglao airport would therefore not, strictly speaking, pay for itself, the finance wizards in government found value in assigning the receivables from a giant company like the Lucio Tan-controlled Philippine Air Lines (PAL) worth P3-billion, payable to the MIAA (Manila International Airport Authority). By a stroke of faith (to be lucky, you must first be good), that figure fits the bill of P3.2-billion - the cost of the Panglao Airport.

The Project will be funded by the partnership of the Land Bank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines - both state-owned banks with tremendous liquidity and profitability.

Finance Secretary Gary Teves (Negros Oriental) used to chair the Land Bank of the Philippines and knows public finance like the palm of his hand. Reynaldo G. David, one of the best technically adept products of the Citibank training program, now heads the Development Bank of the Philippines.

Together, both may have concocted the financial brew, with a jumbo loan of P3-billion versus assignment of PAL receivables. Neat and tidy. By the way, there are talks to merge Land Bank and DBP, but that's another story.

All is set for the four-way MOA (Memorandum of Agreement) between Land Bank, DBP, MIAA and PAL which will precede a significant kick-off date on July 22, 2006 when President GMA inaugurates the Panglao, Bohol International Airport office. The guest house at the Governor's Mansion (renovated during the term of former governor Rene Relampagos) is now a refurbished office of the Panglao airport project which is under the stewardship of DOTC Assistant Secretary Joe Torralba, former Tagbilaran City mayor.

The time table to complete this "dream airport" is September 2009, still within the legal term of office of PGMA which is 2010. We are confident, regardless of who sits in the Palace will see the business wisdom in the airport venture and will see it through.

This is not to overlook the immeasurable influence of Bohol Governor Erico Aumentado, who also chairs the Panglao Island Tourism Estate Interagency Committee, who has left no stone unturned to have the project started in his second gubernatorial term. Doubtless, it is Rico's leadership of local governance, as top man of ULAP (Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines) and the League of Governors, who PGMA had leaned on unofficially as "adviser on crisis management in local governance" which had endeared him to the President to be able to swing deals like these. Today, Bohol takes pride to welcome governors and local executives to a meeting hosted here by the Governor, for instance.

Let's give Governor Rico the credit that he incontrovertibly deserves on this gigantic undertaking that will reshape the face of Bohol Tourism. It will be his lasting legacy to the province he has served with his whole being.

TAGBILARAN AIRPORT: ME FIRST

While Panglao basks in a new blush of certainty, the Tagbilaran City airport will finally have an extended terminal building and a carousel by October next year - in time to service the shift of PAL from 747 to Airbus 320. The turn-around pad is 98% completed which now accommodates Cebu Pacific's Airbus 219.

Rep. Edgar Chatto has pressed Tourism Secretary Ace Durano to fast track the terminal building and carousel projects.

Let's face it - the old terminal building was erected with the view of accommodating smaller planes plying Bohol three times a week then. Today two daily flights involving fully packed Airbus planes just destroys the equation.

Meantime, the site of passengers pulling their luggage with push carts (in the absence of a carousel) underscores a reality we must humbly face: infrastructure has not kept pace with the full blossoming of Bohol's tourist potential.

At least today, instead of just being "red on the face" from embarrassment, government is taking concrete steps to better the premier airport entry point to paradise Bohol. It's about time, too, gentlemen, we'll be frank.