Laguindingan: The best of both worlds

Cagayan de Oro City—I arrived here Tuesday afternoon for the Mindanao Sustainable Agriculture and Cooperative Marketing Forum, while the buzz in practically all corners of the country was still about President Benigno Aquino III’s mid-term State of the Nation Address (Sona).

I rode Cebu Pacific going to CDO and as the plane prepared to land in Laguindingan International Airport, I peered through the cabin window. The still and clear waters of Macalajar Bay gave off a brownish blue color from the top and it seemed like the plane was gliding over a patch of land going to the runway. The aircraft actually landed slowly, as if the pilot was trying to take in the natural splendour of Macalajar a few minutes more before touching down.

I have been to many airports in the country and a few in other parts of the world and I think Laguindingan is one of a kind. Because it is close to the shoreline and surrounded by hills on the opposite side, it offers the best of both worlds, so to speak.

I find it interesting that I’m making my first post-Sendong visit to Cagayan de Oro passing through the newly built Laguindingan International Airport. As we know, PNoy ticked off this facility in his 4th Sona.

The P7.8 billion infrastructure was built with the assistance of the South Korean government. The airport is viewed as gateway to the Cagayan de Oro-Iligan Corridor (CIC), a major economic infrastructure this side of Mindanao.

The CDO airport is not yet fully operational, though.

On the day I arrived, at least two afternoon flights from Manila were cancelled because air traffic in the capital’s international airport was clogged and pushed the arrival of flights to Laguindingan close to 6 p.m., prompting the flights’ cancellation. The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) has not yet given the green light for the airport to operate beyond 6 p.m. because it is not yet fully equipped.

According to MindaNews, the CAAP has yet to install an Instrument Landing System (ILS), a navigational aid for planes, including VHF Omnidirectional Range Navigation (VOR); Meteorological Observing System; and Precision Lighting System (PALS). All these accoutrements are expected to be installed by May 2014.

Actually, local businessmen here continue to gripe about the situation because the old Lumbia airport used to process at least 24 flights daily. At the moment, Laguindingan can only accommodate 18 flights at the most.

Lumbia was closed because visibility around the old airport would drop to zero when weather is bad. There are calls for the old airport to accommodate evening flights, but that would mean operating two facilities using one and the same organization which is costly.

Politics has likewise dealt a lot of changes in Cagayan de Oro City.

The new man at the helm is Mayor Oscar Moreno who defeated Vicente Emano in the mayoralty polls. Moreno had served as the former governor of Misamis Oriental and served in the 11th and 12th Congress. He figured highly in his last congressional stint as one of the House prosecutors in the impeachment of former President Joseph Estrada. This track record may have figured in the mayoralty race although nothing was more significant and emotional than the effects of Typhoon Sendong and the response of the local government in terms of mitigating the effects of the disaster.

I spoke with the staff of the Cooperative Development Authority Northern Mindanao Director Orlan Ravanera, like Cristina Villamil and Fe Jamola, who told me their harrowing experiences, and how they narrowly escaped death when Sendong struck.

In the aftermath of the deadly December 2011 typhoon, people here have a standby ladder that would take them to the top of their houses if floods came. My tocaya Marilou Carumba, senior Cooperative Development Specialist (CDS) said she gets scared every time it rains because the city streets easily get flooded. The lives of people in Cagayan de Oro and neighboring areas were never the same again after Sendong.

Former governor and congressman Moreno, who ran under the administration ticket, easily won in Cagayan de Oro City but the defeat of Vicente Emano, who is affiliated with the Nacionalista Party did not politically marginalize his forces here. The new governor is his son, Bambi, whose running mate Joey Pelaez also won.

Interestingly, Vicente Emano went down together with his congressional candidate in the first district, Benjo Benaldo. The new district representative is Klarex Uy who belongs to the Liberal Party.

CDO’s 2nd district representative Rufus Rodriguez was reelected under the local party and from what I gathered, this anti-Reproductive Health advocate has a positive image in Cagayan de Oro.

The choice of Cagayan de Oro as venue of the Mindanao-wide forum of agricultural cooperatives is very significant. For lack of space, I will tackle this issue in succeeding articles.