New passenger lounges to rise in 2 BARMM airports

COTABATO CITY — Two airports in the Bangsamoro region are set to have new plush passenger lounges each, now being constructed by the regional government’s Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

The lawyer-entrepreneur Ronald Halid Dimacisil Torres, chairman of the Bangsamoro Business Council, said on Thursday that the construction of the lounges in the Sanga-Sanga and Awang airports in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi and in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte, respectively, complements their efforts to enhance  the autonomous region’s investment prospects via essential infrastructure projects.

The Awang Airport is also known as the Cotabato Airport, only about eight kilometers south of Cotabato City, the administrative capital of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

“We are thankful to the MoTC and the members of the BARMM parliament cooperating in the implementation of these projects,” Torres said.

BARMM’s transportation and communications minister, Paisalin Pangandaman Tago, told reporters on Thursday that they are expecting the completion of both projects, launched last December 18, in less than three months.

"We are implementing these projects religiously, in the spirit of transparency and full accountability," Tago said.  

The information and communications office here of the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament announced on Wednesday that the airport lounge projects are bankrolled with grants from the Transitional Development Impact Fund allocations of three members of the regional law-making body, Baintan Ampatuan, Amilbahar Mawallil and Jose Lorena.

Each of the passenger lounge buildings at the Sanga-Sanga and Awang airports costs at least P5 million, according to sources in the MoTC-BARMM and regional parliament.

Tawi-Tawi Gov. Esmael Sali said that he is grateful for the regional parliament members Ampatuan, Mawallil and Lorena for embarking on the project in Sanga-Sanga airport in Bongao, capital of their province.

“Special gratitude also goes to the MoTC-BARMM under Minister Tago for this project which is so good for Tawi-Tawi,” Sali said.

Tawi-Tawi and Basilan provinces are most known now as the “new investment hubs” in the BARMM, according to Mohammad Omar Pasigan, chairman of the Bangsamoro Board of Investments, which is directly under the office of the region’s chief minister, Ahod Balawag Ebrahim.