Central Visayas may soon outshine the rest of the country’s tourist destinations with the opening to commercial operations of the Bohol-Panglao International Airport (BPIA) on November 27.
Thanks to its ultra modern, yet environmentally sound features—the government will finally show it has the will and wherewithal to overcome mediocrity, in which its reputation in aviation has languished for so long.
President Duterte had earlier defended his policy to get rid of the mentality that automatically awards projects solely to the “lowest bidder,” saying the scheme only lines the pockets of the corrupt while coming up with a mediocre finished product. Thus, past experience has seen the country stuck with locally executed airports that, once inaugurated with so much fanfare, would be lacking in many respects.
Not with the BPIA
the Department of Transportation (DOTr), through its Japanese contractor (Chiyoda-Mitsubishi joint venture) and Japan Airport Consultants Inc. (JAC), delivered a finished product that we could all be proud of. Consider the following features: A sewage treatment plant (STP), solar panels, LED interior lighting, energy-efficient air-conditioning system, natural ventilation for transit area, and rainwater for watering plants and other uses. The undulating passenger-terminal roof reflects the rolling Chocolate Hills—the ceiling is made of southern yellow pine from Alabama, the brown handrails and stairs are of imported oak, the tiles are the specific deep ochre hue of old Spanish churches and the toilet fixtures are by Toto, the gold standard of lavatories.
The parking tarmac can hold seven A321 type aircraft at a time or four of the A330 or B777, and the airport is equipped with three multi-angled boarding bridges. There are four elevators, escalators and staircases to reach the predeparture area at the second floor.
Welcome to the first eco-airport in the country. Days before its opening, a BusinessMirror team flew to Tagbilaran, Bohol’s capital, to take a close look at the newest addition to the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines’s (Caap) 80-plus commercial airports across the country. Approaching Tagbilaran Airport from the air, Panglao Island looks like a forest-filled aircraft carrier floating in an azure sea.
A long straight-as-an-arrow scar on the earth indicates the 2,500-meter long (8,200 feet) and 45-meter-wide runway that can accommodate an A330 or B777. BPIA is a single-runway airfield, which can accommodate a yearly influx of 3.44 million passengers some 10 years from now.
The runway is flanked by two taxiways on either side, enabling 10 takeoffs and landings per hour, according to Engineer Edgardo Mangalili, project director from the DOTr.
There are 20 checkin counters to serve eventually 74 flights on a peak day, much more than the current number (i.e. 22 flights) that Tagbilaran is capable of handling.
Peak season
The control tower is, likewise, equipped with cutting-edge technology, including the radio system. By December, the “peak season,” local air carriers would be fielding the double-aisle, wide-body A330 or B777 to cater to the flood of tourists from Korea, China, Japan and elsewhere.
BPIA sits on a 220-hectare area of Panglao Island, covering itself some 91.5 square kilometers (sq kms). By comparison, Mactan Island, where the Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) is located, measures only 65 sq kms.
Panglao comprises two municipalities: Dauis and Panglao, which is part of Bohol province. Panglao Island is located southwest of the island of Bohol, and east and south of Cebu.
According to geologists, Panglao is made of Maribojoc limestone, “the youngest of the limestone units found in the western area of Bohol.” The limestone composition halted the development of the airport as coralline limestone is soluble, which causes the formation of caves and sinkholes. One interesting geological feature found in the island is the Hinagdanan Cave, which has an underground water source. The cave is an important water source as the island has no rivers or lakes.
Eng. Mangalili, who has been with the Project Management Office of the Bacolod and Laguindingan airports, said BPIA was chosen following an updated feasibility study by JAC in 2010. The JAC executed the design and managed the construction of the BPIA, and the finished product costs close to P9 billion.
Japan assistance
Japan International Cooperation Agency, through the Japanese official development assistance, provided about 79 percent or nearly P7 billion of the total cost. The remaining P1.9 billion came from the DOTr general appropriations fund.
As early as 2000 a feasibility study was conducted by TCGI engineers to find a suitable replacement for Tagbilaran Airport. “Panglao Island was the most logical site compared to other sites, such as Barangay Tabalong, Tinago and Bingag in Dauis municipality, some 6 kilometers away,” Mangalili said. Panglao won because of its wide-open airspace, favorable wind direction, topography and accessibility and land use. It is free from possible suits from residents who might be bothered by noise pollution from airplanes.
The area is flat with plenty of room for improvement and the eventual city crawl. Previously called the Central Philippines Comprehensive Infrastructure Development project, the survey focused on the Bohol area during President Arroyo’s term. Bohol has incomparable tourism potentials. It has the world-famous Chocolate Hills, the bug-eyed tarsier, one of the world’s smallest primates; the butanding and dophin, and turtle-viewing areas are off Balicasag and Pamilacan Islands while beckoning nearby are the beaches and dive sites. Currently, there are a few 5-star resorts and 10 4.5-star resorts cum hotel in the island, and more of lesser but, nonetheless, accommodating resorts catering to backpackers and day trippers.
As early as the 1990s, the government had started contemplating a transfer to a new international standard airport in Panglao because Tagbilaran Airport’s 26-sq km area was deemed too crowded. “There was limited capacity for expansion and operational safety concerns,” Mangalili said. In choosing Panglao, the planners also considered the socioeconomic activities that could be generated, accompanied by environmental issues associated with lack of water or underwater pollution.
The whole island is made of limestone, a porous rock that cannot hold rainwater that should have filled a water table, which is nonexistent. The DOTr had to build a water pipe exclusively for the airport, from the main island of Bohol. During President Arroyo’s term, the original plan was for the Manila International Airport Authority (Miaa) to fund the whole project. However, it was delayed due to bidding issues and concerns and finally shelved as the election season had started.
When the Aquino administration took over, Panglao was included among the president’s Public-Private Partnership schemes. Then it was renamed the New Bohol Airport Construction and Sustainable Environment Protection Project, “linking infrastructure, environment and sustainability,” Mangalili added.
After six years the Aquino administration ended without completing the airport. Newly elected President Duterte ordered the speedy construction of BPIA, pressed by the influx of tourists in Tagbilaran and the need for more alternate airports with night-landing capabilities. “Part of the terms of the loan agreement with the Japan International Cooperation Agency that provided most of the fund [was that] the airport should be sustainable and eco-friendly,” Mangalili said. And to hew close to these ideals, it was the Japanese consultant who designed the airport with the imported yellow pine and oak from the United States, the cutting-edge control tower, the STP and the various amenities, among many others.
“It was also the consultant that decided the tiles should be brownished, like those of the old churches and structures in the island. Most of the control-tower equipment is from Japan, the radios are from Germany and the meteorological station is from Finland.” At the time of the interview, Mangalili added that the airside-associated facilities, such as the control tower, runway, taxiway, perimeter fence, perimeter road, access road and navigation aids, are already completed.
“The whole terminal building, which is on the landside, is undergoing finishing touches,” he said then. Technically called “civil works,” it comprises the water system, the temporary perimeter fence and the “soaking yard,” a 16 -hectare area where all the surface water ends up. The whole caboodle eats up about 1.40 percent of the total cost of the project, or P133 million.
Mangalili took the BusinessMirror staff on a tour of the airport, “now 97 percent complete as of October 31.” He showed the ducts where fresh air is sucked from the outside and directed to the transiting passengers. As the other passengers go deeper into the interior, the air is now cooled by an inverter air-conditioning sytem powered by a combined energy from solar and commercial power.
Several local artists are putting the finishing touches on a temporary provided mural that depicts the spots in the island loved by tourists, notably the Baclayon Church, or the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Concepcion, one of the oldest churches in the country. The other churches are Loon, Maribojoc and Loboc. Also in the mural is the wide-eyed tarsier and the iconic Sandugo. This is Visayan for the “blood compact” between the Spanish explorer Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and Datu Sikatuna, the chieftain of Bohol in the 1500s.
Outside of the terminal a few hundred feet away is the STP where flushed water from toilets are scrubbed twice—one through the treatment plant and then released through the engineered wetlands designed to absorb the remaining toxins before finally flowing out of the rip-rapped ditches and into the constructed soaking yard.
Ideal location
BPIA is ideally located, since it is only 90 kms away from Cebu, and aircraft could divert here as an alternate airport in case the MCIA is closed, Mangalili said. “A few months back, there was an incident on the MCIA runway and airplanes had to fly back to Manila and Clark, which are respectively 600 and 700 kilometers away, [respectively].”
BPIA is also accessible by fast craft from Cebu, the double-hulled catamaran type that seems to skim over the water at a fast clip, bringing tourists to Bohol in two hours. He said that the Tagbilaran Airport would eventually be closed.
“The provincial government wanted to manage the 26-hectare property and convert it into an IT or commercial park,” Mangalili said.
Is there a chance for BPIA to be an “aerotropolis,” a modern concept where the airport becomes the future core, the engine of growth, acting as magnets for all industrial, financial, leisure, housing, educational and manufacturing activities? Such idea is not practical at this time, he said, since, “Tagbilaran town is only 19 kilometers away, where currently, there are schools, malls, industries and other things that comprise a modern city.”
With a population of roughly 80,000, Panglao is already showing signs of upward mobility. After hosting the Bohol Beach Club, the original resorts in the island some 30 years ago, residents seem to be reaping the rewards of tourism. New homes are sprouting everywhere, there are no sights of dampa, or lean-tos, and the friendly people always reward visitors with their friendly smiles and easy-going manners.
Noticeably absent are the giant malls that dominate Metro Manila’s skylines. Here, most store outlets are mom-and-pop operations, so far, but the idyllic setup may not last long, some concerned quarters fear. Already there are rumors that the “big boys” from Cebu and Manila would muscle in—if they had not already done it—to take advantage of the huge business potentials that BPIA would soon bring.
At the moment, however, the DOTr does not envision the airport to compete with Mactan, “which is the financial and commercial center of Region 7,” Mangalili said.
“The Caap is still designing the instrument flight rules (IFR) approach procedures,” Mangalili said. This is usually followed by a flight check before it is finally certified. He said that by the first semester of 2019 BPIA would be certified as an IFR airport, meaning that airplanes could come in under all weather conditions. Meanwhile, it could allow visual flight rule, which is a sunrise-to-sunset operation pending the certification for a nonprecision night-time operation through performance-based navigation.
This procedure would allow aircraft with the required navigation performance and area navigation, which are deemed accurate “when supported by the appropriate navigation infrastructure.” This, Mangalili added, “is in anticipation of IFR just to fast track the whole process,” adding that radar control of airplanes landing at BPIA would be from the MCIA.
When the pilots can view the airport visually, they are handed over to BPIA air traffic controllers for landing clearance.
During construction, it was unavoidable that some 6,241 indigenous hardwood trees had to be cut down. To make up for this, however, the Provincial Environment Resources Office and the DOTr inked a memorandum of agreement to replace each felled tree with 100 more trees, or the equivalent of 624,100 new seedlings. This would be planted in various municipalities in Bohol, while close to 2,000 would be within Panglao Airport.
In the interim, the Caap will operate Panglao airport, until such time that an operation-and-maintenance private operator is chosen. Panglao is a name familiar to Chinese, Malay, Siamese and Indonesian traders. It once housed the Kedatuan of Dapitan. Bohol area is a center of biodiversity, and there are about 250 new species of crustaceans and 2,500 new species of mollusks found around the island.
The discovery was the work of the Panglao marine biodiversity project. The project found that Panglao alone has more marine biodiversity than Japan and the Mediterranean Sea.
During the transition from Tagbilaran to Bohol, there would be no caravan of trucks and associated machineries to transfer, according to Mangalili. He said each specific air carrier is now doing their part to bring new machineries and equipment specific for BPIA.
Image credits: BPIA
2 comments
Looking forward to revisiting Bohol buI won’t be flying Air Asia after my last experience.
Friendly advise! Avoid this misplaced (in
the middle of a resort island) airport for at least a year or two.
Issues are many. No adquate parking on the island, no adequate public transportation (no taxis) only antiquated tricycles, no properly built roads and highways.(roads are not machine, but hand built/!/ are narrow and have very rough surface), unruly bikers, hundreds of accident prone askals, airplane noise pollution, general emission polution. Traffic jams at the only two bridges on and off the island. Even worse traffic jams in Tagbilaran City toward seaport.
Conclusion: Stick with Cebu City’s world-class Mactan Airport.