The Department of Transportation (DOTr) is targeting to start the partial operations of Bicol International Airport (BIA) this month.
Arthur Tugade, DOTr secretary, who visited the BIA over the weekend, said the airport went through three groundbreaking and was delayed for more than 11 years.
“I’m targeting to make it operational, domestically, on October 6,” Tugade said during a transport forum last week.
BIA, known as the “Most Scenic Gateway” of the country, is now at 82.22 percent overall progress rate, but the project’s Package 2A, which covers the construction of landside facilities and other buildings, is 94.40 percent complete and aimed to be finished this month.
Once operational, BIA is expected to serve a total of two million passengers every year.
The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines earlier said with non-stop construction ongoing, BIA will be technically operational for commercial aircraft for day operations by October 7 and will be night-rated by November 4, 2021.
In a related development, DOTr has asked the Senate to increase the approved budget for the road sector as the agency only obtained P1 million to be included in the National Expenditure Program for 2022, out of its P19.8 billion budget proposal.
Tugade said the P1 million budget is not enough to fund the road sector projects which include service contracting, bike lanes, free ride services, among others.
For locally funded projects for the road sector, DOTr proposed P13.2 billion, while foreign-assisted projects (FAP) amounted to P6.61 billion.
