Even before the M’lang Airport, soon to be known as the Central Mindanao Airport (CMA), could become operational, the popular international coffee shop “Starbucks” has already established a foothold in the airport area.
When I visited the airport area yesterday, Col. Kit Teofilo, the commander of the 68th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army which has established a temporary base in the mothballed project, invited me to the “Starbucks” coffee corner which he has established in Camp Namit.
Well, actually the “Starbucks” joint in the M’lang Airport is just a “bahay kubo” (hut) which Col. Teofilo and his men have constructed just to make themselves feel that they are in the middle of a bustling metropolis instead of being in Camp Namit in the abandoned airport project.
But while I was sipping Col. Teofilo’s “Starbucks” coffee, my mind swirled to the future and I imagined how this airport area would look like, how M’lang and how North Cotabato would be transformed into a fully developed area when people from as far as Bukidnon, Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato, Lanao del Sur and Davao del Sur would come in droves to M’lang to take their airplane flights which would bring them to Cebu, Iloilo and Manila.
I imagined that hotels and restaurants would be operating in the surrounding areas and meat processing plants, fruit and vegetable packing plants would be established in the airport perimeter so that the products could easily be shipped to the big cities.
Fantasizing, I thought of a picture of the vast Hacienda Buenaflor nearby as the site of a huge SM North Cotabato, Robinson’s Galleria and Gaisano Mall.
And the new name of M’lang is no longer Municipality of M’lang but the City of M’lang which is part of the fully developed Metro Kidapawan area which includes Makilala, Magpet and Matalam.
Impossible?
Well, they also cried “Impossible” when the Wright Brothers said a weird-looking steel frame they called an airplane could fly and when NASA said they would send Neil Armstrong to walk on the moon.
Nothing is impossible. Just keep on dreaming.
Dreams, unlike the movies in Abreeza, are yours for free!
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