Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade assured lawmakers of the completion of the proposed new, safe and comfortable Passenger Terminal Building at the Daniel Z. Romualdez Airport by December 2021.
This was in Tugade’s letter dated Feb. 5, 2020 to House Majority Leader and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez, chairman of the House committee on rules.
“Please be informed that the Construction of New Terminal Building shall be implemented by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), and funding thereof was downloaded to it through a memorandum of agreement,” said Tugade, who earlier promised to finish the project.
“Together, we will make the Tacloban Airport a project of pride,” he said.
Tugade was responding to Romualdez’s letter dated Feb. 4, inquiring on the implementation and construction of the new terminal to address the passenger traffic at DZAR.
Air passenger traffic at the Tacloban Airport rose 21.38 percent in the first semester of 2018, primarily due to additional flights to the regional capital, airport and tourism officials confirmed last Thursday during a House hearing.
In his letter, Tugade said the actual implementation and construction of the new PTB is expected to begin this August.
“The target completion is in December 2021, since after the completion of the DED (Detailed Engineering Design) in March 2020, the procurement period normally takes three to four months,” said Tugade.
He said the DED of the building is ongoing and would be completed this March.
“The said DED is being prepared by a consultant (Urban Integrated Consultants, Inc.). In fact, on Jan. 31, 2020, the consultant presented the initial concept design,” said Tugade.
“The DED is originally scheduled to be completed on April 2020, but we requested the Consultant to expedite the same by March 2020,” said Tugade.