57% of Filipinos favor NAIA rehabilitation – survey

Majority or 57 percent of Filipinos which the Social Weather Stations surveyed recently, wants the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) to be rehabilitated while 29 percent are undecided and 14 percent are not hopeful.

The survey also indicated that 62 percent of the respondents wanted NAIA to be retained while 22 percent were for Clark, nine percent were for Cavite, and six percent voted for Bulacan.

NAIA’s four terminals handle far more passengers than they were built for. They have capacity for 31 million passengers per year but handled 42 million last year, and around 47 million by 2020.

The NAIA Consortium, composed of seven of the country’s largest companies, is drumming up on the survey results to make government speed up its action on their proposal to rehabilitate the airport.

“We are ready to start construction right after we get the notice to proceed (NTP) and deliver the first phase of expanding NAIA’s capacity by 2020. We can complete the project in two years’ time from NTP issuance,” says Jimbo Reverente, consortium spokesperson.

Their private proposal promises to increase NAIA’s capacity to match the 2020 projection. They also pledged to bring NAIA’s capacity up to 65 million by 2022.

The consortium maintains it does not need any government guarantee.

Since its proposal is privately funded, the government can use its funds for other projects instead, like building roads, bridges, schools, and offering other social services like free education.

The government and the private sector can work together on airport development for quick completion since the stringent rules of the procurement law does not apply to private proponents.

Only the grant of an original proponent status (OPS) is needed for this private proposal to move forward, Reverente lobbied.