Waiting for takeoff

Two weekends ago I went to Bukidnon for a brief vacation. Near boarding time at the NAIA Terminal 2 passengers were told that the Philippine Airlines (PAL) flight to Cagayan de Oro’s Lumbia Airport would be delayed by an hour.

When boarding was finally completed after an interminable wait, passengers on the delayed flight sat through several announcements about traffic congestion at the lone NAIA runway that was delaying our takeoff. It took another half-hour before the plane became airborne.

A 30-minute delay in a domestic flight can be forgiven; an hour is bad; an hour and a half in good weather is atrocious.

It’s a shame because service on the PAL flight was efficient and pleasant – the type of service with genuine TLC that only Filipino flight attendants can deliver. I say this not out of nationalistic bias but from experience in my many overseas travels. Maybe the flag carrier, now under new management, should build its own airport.

Someone who has traveled extensively around the Philippines told me that such delays at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport have become common.

The reason is sheer lack of capacity: the NAIA cannot handle the volume of air traffic. Even with several foreign carriers ending their direct flights to Manila or pulling out of the country altogether, the NAIA is still overwhelmed, especially with the rising volume of domestic air travel.

Over the past decades the need for a larger airport has been talked to death, with only the slum communities around the NAIA expanding instead of the airport.

We can’t even get the NAIA Terminal 3 to be a fully operational, 21st-century aviation facility as it was originally envisioned to be, without the project becoming embroiled in a corruption scandal and protracted, expensive litigation.

Instead of building a modern gateway to our country that will lure more visitors and accommodate more flights, we have succeeded in driving away airlines and travelers, who are increasingly bypassing the Philippines for neighboring countries. We’ve also been slow in tapping other markets.

We know, for example, that Thailand is getting a lot of tourists from China (1.76 million visitors last year, out of Thailand’s total 19.8 million arrivals) and Japan (1.12 million), but what about the Russian Federation?

Russian tourists, who tend to be big spenders and travel for two to three weeks, accounted for the fourth largest tourist arrivals in Thailand last year, with over a million visitors – a 57 percent jump from 2010. In contrast, only a few thousand Russians visited the Philippines in 2011.

A Russian expat attributed this to low awareness of the Philippines in his country.

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It’s too bad because the Philippines has a lot to offer in travel and tourism. I was told that the Russians who have been here particularly enjoyed Boracay, Cebu and Palawan.

Malaybalay, Bukidnon was a delight, with its numerous plantations, including the coffee farm of the Monastery of the Transfiguration where Benedictine monks produce my favorite local coffee, marketed as Monks’ Blend.

From the guesthouse at the Pitcher Plant Farm in Barangay Kalasungay, I could see the mist rising at daybreak in the forested mountain. The farm, as indicated by the name, breeds and ships nationwide various types of the carnivorous pitcher plant as well as the Venus Flytrap. The one-hectare eco-friendly farm relies completely on solar power and collected rainwater for its needs.

A new boom area in the province for farming and eco-tourism is Dahilayan, in Barangay Manolo Fortich town, in the Mt. Kitanglad area. An owner of a farm and resort in Dahilayan, near the Del Monte pineapple plantation, told me that he bought his 11.4-hectare property in 2004 for only P400,000. These days you can’t buy a hectare in the area for that amount.

An indication of the boom in the area is that Dahilayan is the only town in the country with six congressional districts. Each of the six congressmen owns a farm in the area.

Bukidnon, where exotic crops such as vanilla beans are now being produced, unfortunately was the source of those illegally cut logs that rolled down and crashed into Cagayan de Oro at the height of deadly floods spawned by storm “Sendong” last December.

Cagayan de Oro has not fully recovered from the disaster; a number of flood survivors still live in tent communities in the city for lack of relocation sites.

But the city continues to boom, as indicated by a rush to build shopping malls and pricey housing. A Coca Cola plant is being torn down to make way for the city’s second SM mall, while an Ayala mall is being built across the Gaisano mall. They will all be competing with the Lim Ket Kai mall, of the family that owns Marca Leon, a brand famous for its corn oil.

Bukidnon can experience a similar boom if it had its own airport. The drive to Malaybalay from Cagayan de Oro – a distance of over 90 kilometers – took over four hours. Though the winding mountain road was scenic, there were so many sections under repair, doubling the driving time.

The Koreans, in partnership with the Ayala group, are building the Laguindingan International Airport in Misamis Oriental, to serve the Cagayan de Oro-Iligan City corridor. But the drive from Laguindingan to Malaybalay will also take a few hours.

The country needs not only a new main airport to serve Metro Manila but also more secondary airports.

If they can afford it, Filipinos love traveling, within and outside the country, and there’s a big market for luxury travelers. PAL’s Mabuhay lounge for business and first class passengers was packed during my trip to Bukidnon.

Business is booming for Cebu Pacific, a leader in budget air travel. The country’s second flag carrier will be heavily affected by a government plan to decongest the NAIA by cutting down the number of domestic flights from the airport. Cebu Pacific has suggested that the government instead make the necessary investments so secondary airports can accommodate more night flights.

Our secondary airports, still built for the days before World War II, lack runway lights, navigation facilities and personnel to handle night flights.

The situation is a sad microcosm of the Philippines: all the necessary elements are there for takeoff, but an environment designed for half a century ago keeps the planes grounded.