READ | Kidapawan city (Jan.6)

Details of the said project, records of negotiations, meetings, agreements and designs on infrastructures and findings were also presented before the Governor. This has resulted to her mandating all responsible offices of the provincial government to unite their effort in fast tracking of the processing of documents. This includes addressing the nitty-gritty details of documents that needs to be complied and be submitted to DOTR purposely for the airport to be operational in due time.

The Governor stresses that pointing a blaming fingers on any official and employees on the delay of requirement submission to DoTR will not help solve the present status of the project. “We need to technically address this concern para mas mabilis. Pointing a blaming finger to anybody won’t help,” she said, emphasising also that fast action must be taken.

In line with this, Governor Catamco set a series of meetings with line agencies including the Office of Senator Laurence Christopher “Bong” Go following the verbal instruction of PRRD during his visit in the municipality of Mlang last week. This comes after her requests for intervention from PRRD for the operation of the airport. The request had Senator Go sent to look over the matter.

The Governor believed that the airport would pave way to a more brisk economic activity and addresses the need for fast transportation of agriculture products and improve trading engagements of cotabato province.

The Central Mindanao airport is located in Mlang with a land area of 62 hectares stretching from Barangay Tawan-tawan and New Rizal. On 2014, DOTR dowloaded 20M for processing of documents and acquisition of expansion area of an additional 10 hectares and conduct of activities in preparation for the operation the airport. Existing structures includes runway, fire building and administration building.

Photo taken by: Melchor Umpan