We welcome the blessing of Terminal 2 Cebu

Today is a monumental day for me personally because it is the blessing of the World’s Friendliest Resort Airport, a name that the GMR-Megawide consortium have adopted for the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA), which it had gotten under a 25-year lease. Of course we expect no less than President Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte to proudly grace this important blessing of MCIA. That includes Department of Transportation (DOTr) Secretary Arthur Tugade and Steven Dicdican, MCIAA general manager. To meet Duterte we have, GMR-Megawide chairman Edgar Saavedra, Srinivas Bommidala GMCAC chairman, Louie Ferrer, GMCAC president, and Andrew Harrison, GMCAC executive adviser.

GMCAC had a special piece written on their invitation, which looks like a passport, which goes: “This is what awaits you in Cebu. Maayong pag-abot Bai! Where warm smiles and welcomes greet you as you land. Where people never doubt to give you a helping hand. The warmth in all the places and the people you encounter are the things that you will cherish and will always remember. So escape to this warmth that embraces the island and makes countless memories from the moment you land. This is what Cebu has for you!”

I say that this opening of the new international airport is a personal triumph for me because I was a private sector director of the MCIAA for 20 years, from the time of then Pres. Corazon C. Aquino until President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. In the mid-1990s, we experimented on the possibility of the MCIA being leased by private companies and the British Air Authority (BAA), now renamed Heathrow Airport Holdings, invited us to London for a series of talks on the possibility of leasing this airport facility. Of course that proposal didn’t push through, but the idea remained a reality and, four years ago, it became a reality, and this reality of having the latest international airport in the world is being blessed today!

With the blessing of the Terminal 2 of MCIA, on June 22, it will finally open its doors to the world, thus putting Cebu once more on the map of the Tourism World… where Cebu has represented the friendliest and happiest faces on this planet to greet its foreign visitors. Kudos to GMR-Megawide for completing this new facility, ahead by one year, so it can start the renovation of the old MCIA Domestic Terminal. While the entire facility is not yet totally ready, but at least Terminal 2 is now ready to serve the international guests to come and visit Cebu.

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I wrote what I recently learned that many cities are trying to prohibit the use of cars within their city limits or their downtown district. So allow me to repeat what I wrote yesterday that the time has come for the State to impose a new law where people who wants to own cars should have a place for them to park their vehicle simply because all areas where cars are not allowed to park especially side streets are now highly overwhelmed by cars who park regardless of the danger they pose to their own neighbors. These car owners do not care if an ambulance cannot pass through the street which, more often than not, causes more injury to patients.

Thanks to the cars parked in these streets, they even pose a bigger danger if a fire happens within their own neighborhood because these cars literally block the main or side road that can no longer allow fire trucks to pass through their street. As I mentioned, places like Japan has finally come up with a law that prohibits the ownership of cars or vans or other motor vehicles if the owners cannot produce a parking space for their car. This was a very welcome law in Japan 20 years ago. With Cebuanos fast getting new cars, pretty soon we too have to force car owners to get a parking space for their cars through the enactment of a law.

Incidentally, in New Delhi, you may not be allowed to register your new car or any other vehicle unless you “provide a parking slot for your vehicle. Call it space crunching if you want but, whether you like it or not, parking issues have become a huge concern in growing cities like Metro Cebu. Ask for a debate on this issue, but its reality has already come of age.

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