Press Release
November 2, 2009

ANGARA URGES TO IMPROVE RURAL AIRPORTS TO PROGRESS ECONOMY

Mindful of the logistical improvement it would bring, Sen. Edgardo Angara is urging allow private franchises to develop a rural airport infrastructure network in the country.

"Rural development is a necessary strategy for national progress," he stressed. Establishing rural airport infrastructure will encourage economic activity in the hinterlands by serving not only as transportation hubs but also as industrial, commercial and service centers. This provides countryside employment and uplifts rural standards of living," noted Angara, Chair of the Congressional Commission on Science and Technology and Engineering (COMSTE).

Angara's bill seeks to provide speedy access between urban and rural areas with an air transport network complemented by the rehabilitation and maintenance of former or existing airports. Many of the 68 airports in the country supervised by the Air Transportation Office (ATO) are ill equipped, expensive to maintain in relation to the low traffic, and are obviously a drain on the national budget. Many of the rural areas have no airports at all; if they do, they are inadequately or not maintained at all and are so difficult to service.

"These rural airports are usually short with unpaved with merely flattened, unattended airstrips with no air safety personnel or equipment available. They have no reserve pilots or mechanics and no communications and security systems. They have poor or no access roads; usually located away from towns due to topographical limits...The need to develop rural airports is ideal to give each town and city in the country their own airport or at least easy access to such," explained Angara.

Development of rural airports, Angara clarified, will permit speedy access and reasonable costs to transport passengers and cargo, increase commercial activity, improve domestic and international tourism and provide immediate access to emergency, rescue and disaster relief services. Taking the example of the recent typhoons that hit the country, Angara seeks to address more logistical issues that rural airport development will allow for. With roads blocked or collapsed, access to airports will ease the transport of relief goods and rescue operations.

"The private sector can initiate this development on its own, without any necessary subsidy from the government but with the proper incentives to do so. If the proper incentives are not provided to the construction, operation and maintenance of rural airport, there will be no downstream domestic activities to eventually tax or even regulate," concluded Angara.

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