THE Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) board has approved the proposal of Rep. Raul Del Mar of the Cebu City North District to start the construction of the airport’s second runway.

The MCIAA board passed last Thursday a resolution approving the proposal during its regular meeting held at the Cebu Ports Authority (CPA) Boardroom.

The approved proposal also includes the utilization of the proceeds of the premium payment received from the GMR-Megawide Cebu Airport Corp. (GMCAC), the present operator of the MCIA Terminal.

The GMCAC joint-venture corporation won the bidding for the construction of the MCIA new passenger terminal building (PTB) and the operations and management of the two PTBs, through a public-private partnership (PPP) scheme.

The premium payment of P14.4 billion had been persistently under public discussion, due to the position of the national government that it belongs to the National Treasury, while del Mar insisted it should remain with the MCIAA for the use of MCIA’s construction of a second runway.

Del Mar has been consistently lobbying in Congress for the fund’s retention in the MCIAA and had filed resolutions for this retention adopted by the House Committee on Transportation, and repeatedly made representations for this purpose with then-Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio A. Abaya at every opportunity.

Finally, in November 2015 the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), now the Department of Transportation (DOTr), and the Department of Finance finally agreed the subject premium payment shall accrue to and become part of the income of MCIAA, thus retaining the whole amount in MCIAA.

However, existing laws required the MCIAA pay income taxes on this income (around P4.2 billion) to the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and dividends to the National Treasury (P4.9 billion). Thus, the amount of P4.9 billion remains free and ready for appropriation.

This is what del Mar explained to the MCIAA board—to earmark this P4.9 billion plus P2 billion of the MCIAA’s retained earnings and such additional amount as may be necessary for the airport’s second runway construction, and to start right away the project-development process leading to its eventual construction.

The MCIAA board fully agreed with him and passed the resolution unanimously on mass motion.

“Del Mar thanks the members of the MCIAA board for sharing our concerns that the construction of the airport’s second runway as soon as possible is vital lest we lose our competitive advantage in the Visayas and Mindanao areas to new international airports now undergoing construction,” del Mar’s statement read.

21 May 2017
By Charles R. Pepito