Baguio wins battle vs Loakan airport closure

BAGUIO CITY – Baguio City finally won the battle against Loakan airport’s closure.

President Arroyo announced here on Friday she will no longer close the more than 70-year-old airport that is now seldom used by commercial airlines.

“We heard the cries of your local leaders,” the President said as she addressed Lakas and Kampi leaders of the Cordillera region who met here to declare a Lakas-Kampi merger on Friday at Camp John Hay.

Baguio political and tourism business leaders and stakeholders united to oppose the closure of the airport because “it means a lot to tourism, business and sentimentalism included.”

Anthony de Leon, chief of the Baguio Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and manager of the posh Baguio Country Club lauded the President’s announcement as he earlier insisted that the airport meant very much to the potential of business and tourism here.

De Leon and other tourism stakeholders earlier petitioned the President to reconsider closing the 4.3-km. airport built at the former grasslands in Barangay Loakan in 1932, “because it is an important infrastructure for Baguio and the rest of the Cordillera region.” 

The citizens of Baguio have a lot of stakes in the closure of the airport, he said.

Baguio Rep. Mauricio Domogan who himself signed in behalf of the Lakas the merger declaration before President Arroyo had earlier vowed political pressure to the President as he enlisted all other Cordillera congressmen in a pressure play with Malacañang on the Loakan issue.

The upgrading of the international airport in Poro Point, La Union has prompted the national government to think of closing Loakan airport.

Arroyo herself confirmed on Friday that if not for her backpedaling the closure, Texas Instrument within the Philippine Export Zone Authority (PEZA) in Loakan should be utilizing the area for the expansion of the US-based microchip manufacturing firm.

But Domogan earlier insisted, “instead of the Loakan airport area, why should PEZA not offer the abandoned mine sites of the Benguet Corp. in nearby Itogon town, in Benguet for TI’s purposes?”