I woke up today, a bit more relaxed, after coming from a hectic three-day Asian Airports Summit 2008 in Singapore. After working through a long list of official and personal things that had piled up while I was gone, I opened the TV set. What greeted me was the contrasting reports of a flag raising ceremony at the EDSA Shrine with distinguished personalities together with orderly lines of uniformed men and women; and in another gathering, well-known personalities were also seen with clergymen, nuns and slogan-shouting persons — demonstrating their cause.
It was to be a commemoration of the first EDSA bloodless revolution in 1986 that toppled a martial law regime. That first instance of people power became an example to the world. To all of us in the Philippines, that People Power Revolution was a symbol of hope and change. Those were the days and that was 22 years ago…and the majority of the people who were at the streets that time are all gone, visibly disillusioned and frustrated by the events that came afterwards.
Some of them are still here but rallying towards a different agenda. With them are the next generation, represented by a cross section of the more vocal among those in our present society. While many in the silent majority continue to be motivated by the never ending quest for the common good and work towards the ultimate aim of improving the quality of life of everyone, they simply could not focus with all the noise and atmosphere of disunity.
What do we all want? Where do we want to go? It seems that no matter who the leader is, someone or some group would always find a reason to remove that person in office. And the worst thing about all these is that we become unified only for that negative purpose.
The job at hand is still that of governing and administering services to the constituency, no matter what the distractions are and what threat may be present that a group would take advantage of any situation, real or deliberately set. We should never forget that the much greater majority is composed of people who just want to get on with doing what is best for himself, his family and in the community where he lives.
ASIAN Airports Summit and the Singapore Air Show
Everything is going right for Asia, as every speaker expressed a tremendous growth of aviation in the Asia Pacific. Orders for new aircraft have exceeded expectations. And every investor in the west has come, bringing people and resources eastward.
In the ASIAN Airports Summit 2008, I spoke on the tremendous growth of our domestic air travel. We have grown by 23 percent in 2007, second in the world to India, and much ahead of China. This growth was mainly because of our Low Cost Carriers that further induced a lowering of prices in air travel. I’ll write about this, as well as developments in aviation and events during the Singapore Air Show, in the next issues.
Back in Mactan
Closer to home, the Air Philippines Bombardier Q300 has started to fly the Manila-Caticlan (Boracay) route. It will start its Cebu-Caticlan route in April
In the meantime, a Cebu Pacific’s ATR 70-seater aircraft is going through its phases before it goes into operation by February 29 for Manila- Caticlan, and by March 28 for Cebu-Caticlan.
We have always believed that man is by nature good and cooperative. We always focused on the positive and never paid attention to negative distractions. Dreams are always for the better, and the visions of a tomorrow that is full of hope. No matter what today brings and the wounds of the past that may reopen, dreams will never die. And they will never die when we always share and... follow the dream.
danfrancia@mactan-cebuairport.com.ph