Report: Silay airport 86% complete

Five months after communist rebels attacked it, the Silay City airport in Negros Occidental is ahead of schedule and will be ready for a soft opening as early as April. Sun-Star Bacolod (www.sunstar.com.ph) reported Wednesday that the New Bacolod (Silay) Airport in Bagtic, Silay City is now 86 percent complete. Transportation and Communication assistant secretary Ricardo Tan said President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will be the invited guest at the soft opening. He said that as of Monday, the two-kilometer runway and the control tower are 100 percent finished while the passenger terminal building is 91 percent complete. "Next week, works for landscaping and McKinley access road will commence. We will beat the June or July deadline this year," he said. Sprawling in a 1,810,000-meter land area, the 8.2 billion yen (P5 billion) project was attacked by rebels on Oct. 8 last year. The New People’s Army (NPA) rebels bombed two imported electronic-controlled batching plant towers and a generator set at the airport powerhouse. The project construction started on Aug. 4, 2004 and was expected to be finished on Jan. 20, 2007. "It can’t be denied that there were delays and so we expect the completion of the project in the 3rd quarter of this year," Tan said of the attack. Funding for the project was obtained through a Philippine loan from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). Japanese firm Takenaka Itochu Corporation is the main contractor with Korean firm Hanjin Corporation as sub-contractor. Once completed, the Silay airport can accommodate Boeing 737 and Airbus 330 passenger planes, but will basically serve domestic flights. Meanwhile, Tan denied the report that Philippine Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) is planning to build a casino beside the Silay airport. "There’s no truth yet on this report," Tan said. - GMANews.TV