So government goofed when it ordered the premature opening of Laguindingan Airport. It must have been a good idea at the time, the warranty running out and we can’t afford the added expense blah, blah, blah…
Okay, so we went along with it and found out to everyone’s consternation LA doesn’t quite cut it as a Visual Flight Rules (VFR) airport when visibility drops even when the weather is fair, and the horrid cost of cancelled flights and the aggravation and expense of going back and forth, back and forth, again and again and again raises the collective temperatures of the affected parties to the point of spontaneous combustion.
But wait, here’s a chance for PNoy and all the bright boys who came up with all that jazz about moving general aviation to Sangley Point to decongest NAIA (and not yet pushing through with it, after all).
Seems the problem now with LA is the original schedule for the completion of the installation of its landing lights and navigational aids has to be put back five months because guess what? The premature opening cut off a full year or the equivalent of six working months off the contractor’s original time sked to finish the work by June, this year! That’s because he can’t work while the airport operates from 6am-6pm. Oo nga naman. Indeed, when it rains, it really pours!
How to move back the sked to its original timeline? Can be done, but we need to “crash” as what our professors for PERT-CPM terms it: you need something done double time? Pay extra for additional inputs and personnel. Seems the winning Korean contractor SKY-KR Consortium won with a bid of only P411, 561,000.00. That’s 32 percent lower than the ABC of P609, 258,191.41 and 42 percent less than the NEDA approved cost of P 708,137,138.00.
Thus, a supplemental contract not exceeding the original NEDA approved cost of P708.14 million or even the ABC of P609.26-million can be considered a viable option given the economic losses now being incurred by the people of Northern Mindanao with the flight cancellations and loss of night and early morning flights.
This would also be fair to SKY-KR since the Original Construction Schedule of 15 months from March 2013 to June 2014 was based on unrestricted working time condition. When the national government insisted on opening Laguindingan Airport on 15 June 2013, it effectively doubled the remaining 12 months of that contract.
Now, the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) can ask SKY-KR to expedite a revised program of work which would permit the lights and navaids to be commissioned by June, providing the contractor also agrees to the supplemental contract price of either P197, 697,191.41 or P296, 576,138.00, these two amounts representing the different between the contractor’s winning bid and the ABC and NEDA approved cost for the ANSSF Supply Project, respectively.
Once DOTC and SKY-KR reaches an accord, the Regional Development Council for Region X can endorse this to Congress for funding. Both Reps. Rufus B. Rodriguez and Rep. Maxie B. Rodriguez, Jr. have agreed to help move the draft bill through Congress for approval.
It would help a lot however, if all stakeholders in the Cagayan de Oro-Iligan Corridor (CIC) growth area served by Laguindingan collectively demand (in a strong, united voice) for the expeditious approval of this supplemental contract citing the urgency of the need and the horrific losses the flight cancellations at Laguindingan have cost the region so far.
Flight data of flight cancellations at the Laguindingan Airport compiled by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) show that for January 10-22, 2014 alone, 304 commercial flights (56 percent!!) of 546 scheduled flights were cancelled due to limited visibility brought by inclement weather and the lack of landing lights and navigational aids.
Using the P1.5 million per round trip average operating expense of an Airbus A320 on the CDO-MLA-CDO route as benchmark, airlines total losses for the 304 cancelled flights total P228-million, adversely affected 22,800 passengers at an average of 1,800 daily over the 12-day period.
This is about the same amount of damages caused by TS Agaton and its aftermath to infrastructure (P273.62 million) and agriculture (P253.49 million) reported by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) last Jan. 30, 2014.
The Cagayan de Oro Chamber of Commerce and Industry Foundation, Inc. (Oro Chamber) conservatively estimates the cancelled flights cost Cagayan de Oro alone at P20-M daily in actual and opportunity costs.
So it would help the case of DOTC a lot if the supplemental budget was endorsed by the Infrastructure Committee of the Regional Development Council for Region X (RDC-X) which meets this week for the approval and further endorsement by the RDC-X full council meeting scheduled later this month.
We need resolutions of support from the LGUs, chambers of commerce and all affected stakeholders to further bolster the urgent need for that supplemental budget, so let’s all raise a hue and cry that’s guaranteed to ring in the ears of PNoy and those bright boys in Malacañang to make haste with that make up call and at least undo a little of the damage their hasty and ill-advised move to prematurely open Laguindingan Airport has caused Cagayan, Iligan and Region X.
Uneasy rests the land that realizes we have 24 more letters to go after Basyang that could come down on our heads anytime like the literal ton of bricks. And it isn’t even the rainy season yet! We can’t afford to fly out of that airport into the teeth of another Agaton.
-30-