DOTC awards ₱1.3 Billion 32 year old NAIA 1 rehab to DMCI, gives Dec. 1, 2014 deadline for APEC 2015

Proposed NAIA renovation design by Kenneth Cobonpue

•  ₱1.299 Billion NAIA 1 rehab contract covers structural refitting and the improvement of mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection facilities and architectural works - DMCI
• ₱34.492 Million to oversee the project, NAIA 1 rehab construction management and supervision - TCGI Engineers
• ₱500 Million of the allotted funds for the NAIA 1 rehab project was earmarked for structural and aesthetic work - "The group of Cobunpue, Layug, and Pineda"
• ₱300 Million construction of a rapid exit to ease runway congestion and minimize delays of incoming or outgoing flights.
• ₱20 Million for the repair and rehabilitation of airport 72 restrooms

To follow projects:

• The South Metro Manila Skyway Project (Stage 2);
• LRT Line 1 North Extension Project;
• The Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Toll Expressway (TPLEX)
• The Metro Rail Transit Line 7

The Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) chose listed construction heavyweight D.M. Consunji, Inc. on Monday to rehabilitate the 32-year-old Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1, the country's main air travel gateway to the rest of the world.

DOTC Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said DMCI must complete the project by December 1, 2014—just before the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) senior officials' and high-level meetings, which the Philippines will host.

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"We will try our best to complete it, we are really behind but that is our target. This is long overdue and hopefully it will be completed as scheduled," Abaya said.

NAIA 1 has so far had 13,848 arriving flights (January to September) and welcomed 3.069 million people (January – September), while it sent off 13,843 flights and 3.325 million departing passengers.

The terminal was originally designed to handle only 4.5 million people in a year, but the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) said on its website that "improvements" made over the years "increased its capacity to 6 million passengers yearly."

The MIAA also said, "International passenger traffic in 2012 increased by 3.5% compared to 2011, from 7,831,099 to 8,105,782 and international flights likewise increased by 3.14% from 37,964 to 39,157."

Terminal 1 has 16 gates, 84 check-in counters and 22 immigration stations to service "all international flights coming into Manila, except for those operated by Cebu Pacific, Air Philippines, Philippine Airlines and All Nippon Air."

Secretary Abaya made the NAIA 1 contract award to DMCI public during the inauguration of three Philippine National Railway stations, which the same firm undertook and completed.

Highly-anticipated and much-scrutinized, the NAIA 1 rehab contract is worth ₱1.299 billion and covers structural refitting and the improvement of mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection facilities and architectural works.

The contract does involve the operation and maintenance of the oldest and most congested international airport.

The Ninoy Aquino Int'l Airport Terminal 1 in Pasay City has been voted the worst airport in Asia for 2012 and in the world for 2013 by the readers of online travel site 'The Guide to Sleeping in Airports.  Danny Pata

To oversee the project, engineering firm TCGI Engineers was also awarded on Monday the separate contract for the NAIA 1 rehab construction management and supervision - a ₱34.492 million deal.

Abaya said the December 1, 2014 deadline comes from the organizing committee of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

The award comes just days after the fatal shooting at NAIA Terminal 3 of four persons, including the mayor of a town in the province of Zamboanga del Sur, of Western Mindanao.

Only last October, "The Guide to Sleeping in Airports", a travel website, said NAIA 1 was the worst airport in terms of "comfort, amenities and overall experience."

To partly address the issues adverse reviews of the airport raised, the Cobonpue, Layug and Pineda group had volunteered months ago to redesign the airport terminal for free.

 "The group of Cobunpue, Layug, and Pineda are on board," DOTC Secretary Abaya said.

Some ₱500 million of the allotted funds for the NAIA 1 rehab project was earmarked for structural and aesthetic work.

The construction of a rapid exit taxiway could cost ₱300 million, though it would ease runway congestion and minimize delays of incoming or outgoing flights.  

For the repair and rehabilitation of 72 restrooms, some ₱20 million is allocated.

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DMCI was also awarded the contracts for building other major infrastructure projects of the administration of President Benigno Aquino III. Among these projects are: - ELR/DVM, GMA News

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₱4.8-Billion New Panglao Airport open to Japanese contractors

₱4.8-Billio New Panglao, Bohol Airport. Source: PPP.Gov.Ph

The Philippine government is inviting Japanese contractors to join the bidding for the ₱4.8-billion contract to build a new airport in Panglao Island, Bohol, a project funded by the Japanese government.

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There will be a single-stage bidding procedure for the New Bohol Airport Construction and Sustainable Environment Protection Project such that there will be no pre-qualification stage.

But the Department of Transportation and Communications (DoTC) stressed that only Japanese contractors are eligible as prime contractor for the project and Filipinos or other nationalities can be eligible as sub-contractors.

The project, funded through a loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), covers the construction of passenger terminal building, control tower, fire station, drivers' lounge, car parks, guard house, toll booths, utility and navigational aids buildings, access roads and airport infrastructure including runway strip and taxiways.

It also covers the supply and installation of water and power supply system, sewage treatment system, air navigation facilities, and aeronautical ground lighting.

Interested bidders can purchase the bid documents for $1,000. A pre-bidding conference is set on January 6 while the deadline for submission of bids is set on March 3.

The new international airport in Bohol is soon to rise in a 216-hectare land in Panglao Island and will replace the old Tagbilaran Airport.

Representatives of JICA and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines signed the official development assistance loan agreement for the New Bohol Airport Construction and Sustainable Environment Protection Project last March 27.

According to JICA, the airport construction will be using Japanese environmental conservation technologies due to the conditions of the Japan-tied procurement.

"Under the concept of 'an eco airport,' the project will construct a new environmentally friendly airport using advanced Japanese technology, including a photovoltaic power generation system and geotextile sheets in the soaking yard to prevent airport drainage water from polluting the surrounding environment during construction," JICA said in its website http://www.jica.go.jp.

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JICA said the completion of the project expected by June 2016. "After the construction is completed, technical assistance will be provided for environmental protection to avoid a negative impact to the natural environment caused by the increase in tourists," JICA added. – Manila Bulletin

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Global Jubilee call for cancellation of World Bank $60 Billion Philippines’ debt part extravagant Marcos era’s $132 billion loan

A view of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) in Morong, Bataan, north of Manila.The U.S.-built plant, completed in 1984, sits on an earthquake fault line and has never generated electricity. Photo March 17, 2011. REUTERS/Erik de Castro

Aid agencies call for cancellation of Philippines' foreign debts

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Lenders should cancel the Philippines' international debt of $60 billion to help the country pay for work needed to recover from Typhoon Haiyan and prepare for future emergencies, Christian Aid said on Thursday, a view echoed by other aid agencies.

The Philippines pays its international lenders nearly $22 million a day in interest, so has paid more than $550 million since Typhoon Haiyan struck nearly one month ago, Christian Aid said in a statement.

Repayments of debt and interest on loans amassed over 40 years, including the extravagant Marcos era, total some $132 billion, it said.

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The president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition, Ricardo Reyes, agreed with the call, saying he believed that "justice for the Filipino people demands debt cancellation, especially the illegitimate debts, which are odious, onerous, illegal, violate human rights, harmful to the people, environment and climate, and bereft of institutional processes and the consent of the people."

"Climate justice demands reparations to enable the Philippines to develop resilience to climate change and compensation for losses and damages," he added.

"International lenders should put life before debt and cancel the Philippines' foreign debt obligations as a matter of urgency, " the director of Jubilee Debt Campaign, Sarah-Jayne Clifton, said. "The Philippines urgently needs funding for relief and reconstruction efforts, as well as to adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change and support communities who live in areas that are beyond adaptation," Clifton added.

Reconstruction costs after Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 5,600 people and wrecked more than a million homes, are estimated at between $6.5 billion and $15 billion.  The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have announced a total of $1 billion in loans for rebuilding.

An IMF country report published in April said that one-fifth of the country's yearly revenue goes on debt servicing.

"The Philippines is prone to natural disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes. Debts that should have been cancelled years ago are limiting the country's capacity to respond and prepare for future emergencies. Action on this is clearly needed before any new debts are added," said Christian Aid's senior economic justice adviser, Joseph Stead.

The Jubilee Debt Campaign, Freedom from Debt Coalition, Jubilee South (Asia) and Christian Aid have launched a petition calling on lenders such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to cancel the Philippines' debt.

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The campaigners say the Philippines has not derived much benefit from its sizeable loans. In one case, they say, loans were taken for a nuclear power plant, but the U.S. builder sited it on an earthquake fault line near a volcano, and it never generated any electricity.

The Philippines was excluded from the global Jubilee movement, a campaign for the cancellation or repudiation of developing country debts, as it was considered to be too rich.

There were 16 million malnourished people in the Philippines in 2011, according to an FAO report.

The campaign resulted in the cancellation of $130 billion of debt, most of it owed by African countries. –Thomson Reuters Foundation

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Untold history of Russia: Guiuan a typhoon devastated Visayas Island was a home of 6,300 white Russian refugees fleeing the Communist forces of Mao Zedong

Untold History of Russia links to the Visayas Island of the Philippines. Photo credit: independent.co.uk

Tubabao,  Guiuan (pronounced as "Ghi-wan" or "Gee- One") devastation opened the untold part of Russian history that links the Philippines' Visayas Island for the 1949's Mao's communist forces approaching Shanghai China which was once the home of the white Russian refugees who flee aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution.

It was not only for Israel's untold story who survived from the Nasi Germany holocaust by fleeing to the very welcoming Philippines for refuge but also the untold stories of more than the number of the Israel refugees in the Philippines with a six times fold or 6,300 white Russian refugees to the Philippine sin 1949 given a safe place to the Visayas Island in the Philippines.

When the International Refugee Organization, established to tackle the displacement crisis caused by the war; like how the country welcomed the Jewish refugees,  the Philippines is the first country to open for white Russian refugees then slowly, various other nations stepped forward to accept the refugees on a permanent basis and the White Russians were scattered, especially to the US, Australia, and South America.

How many more untold stories being kept by the more than 7,000 islands in the Philippines, let's wait for more highlighting events to come.

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A forgotten episode in Russian history leaves links with the Philippines

Guiuan was central to a remarkable part of the Cold War

One evening a couple of weeks ago, beneath a cavernous sky, I stood on the edge of a 7,000ft airstrip in the Philippines peering into the darkness. The airfield at Guiuan, built by American forces during the Second World War as part of General Douglas MacArthur's operation to drive the Japanese from the Philippines, was now being used by US troops to land emergency supplies for the town devastated by Typhoon Haiyan and to evacuate the injured and sick.

The Americans overseeing the supply drops were tickled by the idea of history retracing itself more than six decades on. But it was something that an aid official had said a couple of days earlier that had me entranced; a few years after the war's conclusion, the official said, the airstrip had been used for a dramatic evacuation of White Russian refugees, fleeing the Communist forces of Mao Zedong.

It all seemed too fanciful. And yet, it transpires, the official was correct: the town of Guiuan, where officials say 100 per cent of buildings were either damaged or destroyed, was central to a remarkable tale of the Cold War that has now been forgotten.

In 1949, with Mao's forces approaching Shanghai, an appeal was made by the International Refugee Organisation, established to tackle the displacement crisis caused by the war. It wanted new homes for thousands of White Russians, those people who had emigrated from Russia in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution and whose lives were now in danger from the Communists.

Only one country responded positively. And so it was that more than 5,000 White Russians, under the care of John Maximovitch, the Orthodox Archbishop of Shanghai who would later be canonised, were taken to the island of Tubabao, located off the coast of Guiuan.

"There are many variances as to how many took refuge here but the most accurate approximation runs to some 6,300," Ricardo Suarez Soler, the Manila-based author of The Saga of the White Russian Refugees in the Philippines, told me.

An advance party of White Russian boy scouts was apparently flown to Guiuan to prepare an area on Tubabao for the tent city the thousands of refugees would call home, hacking away at the sugar cane with machetes. Most came in ageing, listing boats, reportedly crewed by Chinese former prisoners, on a journey that took between one to two weeks. When they got there, the refugees were given food and supplies deemed surplus to the needs of the Americans.

One of those who made the journey was Nikita Gileff. Now a retired school principal in Australia, Mr Gileff was seven when he and his mother landed at Tubabao.

"It is part of history that appears to have been lost," said Mr Gileff,  speaking from Sydney. "We came ashore in the same landing craft that had been left behind by the Americans."

Gradually, various nations stepped forward to accept the refugees on a permanent basis and the White Russians were scattered, especially to the US, Australia, and South America.

But the bond between Guiuan and its former residents has remained strong. Four years ago, the then mayor of the town issued an invitation to White Russians to visit and a number took up her offer.

Alexander Vassilief, whose family also escaped from China, said his late grandmother, Yefrasinya Vajinsky, along with two aunts and three uncles, spent time on Tubabao. "Most did not complain," said Mr Vassilief, a retired engineer who also lives in Sydney and has written his own chronicle of the events.

Indeed, last month, as the extent of the damage wrought upon Guiuan by the storm became clear, Russian communities around the world sent messages of support and held fund-raising events.

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Nikolai Massenkoff was 10 when he and his mother were evacuated to Tubabao. Today he lives in California where he is a celebrated performer of traditional Russian songs. Having been unable to take up the invitation from Guiuan's mayor in 2009, he instead travelled there in 2011 and performed a thank-you concert. He is now planning a series of fund-raising events and a documentary containing footage of his 2011 concert is to be shown at a Philippines fiesta later this month in San Francisco.

"The people of the Philippines were warm and kind and gentle. They were the only place that could offer the refugees a place at short notice," recalled the 74-year-old. "The whole Russian community has been deeply saddened by the tragic events."

During their time on Tubabao, the refugees built several chapels. None remains today. However in September, six weeks before Typhoon Haiyan, a small group of Orthodox pilgrims visited Tubabao where a shelter had been constructed to hold the first such service there for more than 60 years. The Orthodox priest who performed the liturgy, Father Seraphim Bell, an American citizen, said local people had been friendly and welcoming. "Members of the local community expressed hopes Russians would return for pilgrimages to Tubabao and the chapel there," he said.

With story published in The Independent

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Philippine Airlines after 13 years Fly back to Saudi Arabia; all seats are fully booked

Ambassador Tago (center) lead the ribbon cutting ceremony along with Otham Al Zamil, director for operations and fire service, and Ali Al Rashid, airport manager for terminal operations. (Philippine Embassy photo)

Return of Philippine Airlines flights to KSA get positive response

The resumption of the Philippine Airlines' Manila-Riyadh and Manila-Dammam flights has received positive response, with most flights in December 2013 already fully booked, the Philippine Embassy said in a press statement.

"We are very happy to welcome the Philippine Airlines back to Saudi Arabia, with today's flights to and from Riyadh and on 3 December to and from Dhahran," the statement quoted Ambassador Ezzedin H. Tago as saying on Sunday during the ceremonial ribbon cutting of the Philippine carrier's return.

Tago, together with PAL and Saudi immigration officials, was at Terminal 1 of the King Khalid International Airport on Sunday to welcome the passengers and the crew onboard the first PAL flight non-stop Manila-Riyadh-Manila on Sunday.

He led the ribbon cutting ceremony along with Otham Al Zamil, director for operations and fire service, and Ali Al Rashid, airport manager for terminal operations.

The twin-engine Airbus 330-300 with flight number PR 564 was operated by Captain Jose Reginald David, assisted by Captain Ruel V. Isaac and Second Officer Erik Lee Isaac landed at KKIA at 2:01PM carrying 376 passengers from Manila.

The return flight of PR 655 was fully booked with 391 passengers and departed at 3 p.m. Sunday.

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On Tuesday, PAL will make its inaugural flight at the King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, Eastern Province.

PAL first started flying to and from Saudi Arabia on July 3, 1982, landing in Dhahran International Airport and eventually had flights to and from Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah until 2001 when the airlines was hit by a crippling pilots' and ground crew strike.

Filipinos in the western side of the Kingdom, meanwhile, are asking why PAL has not restored its Manila-Jeddah-Manila flight.

PAL has yet to issue a statement on the matter, but industry sources say the airline did not get sufficient booking for the year, unlike in Riyadh and Dammam.

Ambassador Tago said he was hoping that the return of the Philippine Airlines to the Kingdom "will restore further interest in the Philippines among Saudi tourists and provide a more familiar travel option to our kababayans (nationals) in Saudi Arabia."

Tourism to the Philippines from Saudi Arabia has increased steadily over the past three years, with the Philippines increasing its tourism promotion activities in the Gulf region and specially Saudi Arabia.

Flights from Riyadh will leave every Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 1:30 p.m. The flights from Dammam will leave every Monday, Tuesday and Saturday.

PAL's general services agent in Riyadh is Al-Tayyar Travel, while it is Kanoo Travel in Dammam.

Founded in 1941, PAL is Asia's oldest commercial airline and it was one of Asia's biggest until the 1997 Asian financial crisis forced it to drastically slash its international operations, reducing its fleet and laying off thousands of employees.

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In 1998, it had to be placed under receivership, which it eventually exited in 2007 after its financial stability was ensured.

With the takeover of PAL by San Miguel Corporation, one of the Philippines' biggest companies, industry watchers are predicting an eventual return of the flag carrier to its old glory. – The Arab News

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