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News Top Stories NAIA T3 – World Class and Opened!
News Top Stories NAIA T3 – World Class and Opened!
| NAIA T3 – World Class and Opened! |
| Monday, 28 July 2008 00:00 | ||||||
 If there is another achievement that the Arroyo administration could have trumpeted in the SONA last July 28, it was the partial opening of the previously "mothballed" NAIA Terminal 3.What should have been in use a decade ago finally opened to domestic air travel last June 22, servicing Cebu Pacific first and PAL and Air Philippines soon after. A month later, the terminal was able to receive President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo from her US trip and officials showed her around the terminal. Perhaps because the ownership issue and "just compensation" as ordered by the Supreme Court has not yet been really fully settled between the Philippine government and PIATCO, the SONA team chose not to highlight the opening of NAIA T3. If so, it’s a pity because even if the terminal’s design is almost 13 years old, it is definitely world-class and "talagang mapag-mamalaki." I saw it being constructed in the nineties and it was already awesome even back then. Now…a few mornings ago, I visited the terminal 3. While this terminal may not be as grand as the new Bangkok airport, it is close and a definite improvement over the congested terminal 1. Now it can be revealed: negotiations to open the terminal were done without shedding too much "blood," and those who should be credited are speaker Prospero "Boy" Nograles and NAIA general manager Alfonso Cusi, and of course PGMA’s former chief of staff Mike Defensor, who came in during the last few months. GM Cusi and staff burned the midnight oil once he got the go signal to open the terminal and pronto! Cebu Pacific (thanks to its CEO Lance Gokongwei) immediately signified their intention to start flying domestic flights from there. From the time T3 was opened to local flights, some 17,000 passengers, all of them happy about the spacious, clean, and modern arrival and departure areas, have gone through the T3. The terminal was designed to service 13 million passengers annually.Unfortunately greed, corruption and bribery charges, counter-charges, politics, and more politics delayed its completion. If it opened on time, we would have been ahead of some of our neighbors in having a world-class airport terminal! Anyway, from point to point, the linear-design building is 1.2 kilometers long, and good news to environmentalists, most of the bulbs in the huge terminal (terminals l and 2 and the domestic terminal can fit in the terminal 3 building with space to spare!) have been changed to low-watt and low-energy bulbs. The electric bill for a day’s air-conditioning is P1 million! (It’s cold in the terminal, believe me!) Cusi has been making a good progress in managing the NAIA and satellite airports. His management style is people-friendly but firm in the discipline and order area. For instance, he has practically eliminated the "escorts" including some media fixtures (which has not exactly endeared him to them). He has also eliminated the long queue of passengers outside the departure gates just to get in past the security guards who demand IDs, passports, tickets, etc. He has streamlined a lot of procedures in the airport for the benefit of passengers and has organized coupon taxis, metered taxis, and rent-a-car units. They are all registered with the management for the security of passengers. No more mayhem when passengers exit the terminals l, 2, and 3! Security measures have been upgraded in T3 to conform to international standards, and all safety concerns of the building, perceived structural defects, etc. have been addressed, Cusi assured us in our Bulong Pulungan media forum, without the government spending for the repairs and upgrades. Not many people know that the low-key Cusi has roots in San Juan, Batangas, and Mindoro but grew up in Bacolod where he was an intern in La Salle. He got very good grades there and later studied business management in UP Cebu. Much later, after four children and various business ventures, he started in the shipping business with the "roll on-roll off" inter-island routes. He was still in the private "roll on-roll off" business when he was appointed to head the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA). Cusi helped make the "ro-ro" program a centerpiece of the Arroyo administration and he had innovations, like putting decent terminals for passengers in the different ports. He also put up halfway houses for those who needed temporary places to stay. PPA started him in the government service. Four years ago, Cusi was appointed to NAIA, supervising seven international airports all over the country. These mornings, if the day starts slow for Cusi, he sits and sips his coffee and watches the world pass by in T3 which now has the tag line, "NAIA, we go the extra smile." He’s happy that it’s finally been opened. Let’s hope the rightful ownership and "just compensation" issues are finally settled in court. And to this columnist, it’s a beautiful coincidence that the opening of T3 is in time for the 25th anniversary of the sacrifice and heroism of the man it is named after – Ninoy Aquino Jr. – on August 21!
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