One journalist said that the statement of the President to close Loakan Airport to give way to the expansion of the Philippine Economic Zone (PEZA) was not official but a passing comment or a thought said aloud by the President in an informal conversation about the Loakan area.

The alleged closing of the Baguio airport may be another misdirected over-zealous concern from the same group that fed the meningococcemia rumor not so long ago that grew into mass panic and wasted energies.

In the mean time, Loakan Airport like the rest of the government projects and land acquisitions made in the name of the nation in this city; is an ancestral land adjacent to the landmark land case property in the Camp John Hay area that has not been truly settled and continues to be justice denied the indigenous peoples of this area. Should there be any changing of the landscape or the land use in the Loakan Airport area the settlement of this historical injustice should be the first and foremost and nothing more is the right thing to do.

Nevertheless, Loakan Airport was built on top a hill beside the tallest mountain in Baguio (Sto. Tomas) to accommodate the new small airplanes of that era (mid 20’s to 40’s). Who would at that time possibly know that air transport would be as big as the airbus of today … from two seater planes to a 450 passenger mammoth?

That small airport served the air transport of the American base since its construction, the 2nd world war and the limited air commerce of the city and the transport of gold from the nearby mines for many decades. Even when the 1990 earthquake broke it, it still served the helicopter and C130 transport of people and aid for the city as well as a trader’s lode of potatoes from Mt. Trail to Manila that sold at a profitable P75 per kilo at that time in 1990.

Aside from that, it served the planes that brought in the Philippine presidents, generals and US servicemen every summer. In the late seventies to 1980, Philippine Airlines, in season, had five to, the most I counted, 10 flights of that Japanese YS11 planes (60-seater) and BAC 111s (100-seater) in one day over its two-regular 40-seater Manila-Baguio-Manila flights then. When Texas instruments was in operation the airport served the transport of large boxes of computer chips out and the shipping in of the needed raw materials of the EPZA factories then.

If there is some of that concern, energy and zeal among the tourism officials and businessmen for the preservation of our “small” airport maybe it should be spent more in organizing our thoughts of what we want and what should be for that small but functional and useful airport for the city. Finalize a development plan that is just right and not scandalously expensive, parochial and fancy but functional, practical and that would satisfy at least most of the local natives, the local population and the visiting clients, guests and business partners, that would clear the land issues, stand as witness of the city’s history, and work to sustain business to support the city and its people.#