- CHERYL G. CRUZ
The Bacolod Sangguniang Panlungsod is requesting Department of Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista to install Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) facilities at the Bacolod-Silay Airport, to accommodate international flights.
The request is contained in a resolution authored by Councilor Em Legaspi Ang, chairperson of the SP Committee on History, Culture and Arts, that the sanggunian has approved in its regular session recently.
“In order to promote inbound tourism from international tourist visitors and pump prime the local economy of Bacolod City and other local government units in Negros Occidental, it is imperative for the Bacolod-Silay Airport to have CIQ facilities,” the resolution stressed.
Travel and tourism have already opened after an almost two-year hiatus because of the COVID-19 global pandemic, Ang said, adding that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., said in a statement in September that his administration “intends to fully utilize regional airports by opening direct flights going to the same, minimizing the air traffic in Metro Manila, and cutting down connecting flights making travel of tourists more comfortable.”
The DOTr said the upgrading of the Bacolod-Silay Airport is also in its agenda for 2023.
The SP also approved the proposed forming of a sister-city relationship with Carson City in California, USA, that will benefit Bacolod City by increased international tourism arrivals, potential large business investments, and exchange of technology ideas and best practices.
Ang, who proposed the move, said Carson City in the Los Angeles County, California, has a big Filipino-American population. “One of its newly-elected city council members, Arleen Bocatija Rojas, is a Fil-Am with roots from Bacolod, and is also a member of the Long Beach Bacolod Association.”
She said that Bacolod has successfully initiated sister city relationships with other cities already which have generated tourist arrivals and investments in previous years. “The exchange of ideas, technology, education, and best practices will be highly mutually beneficial to both parties.”
It is of vital interest to any growing city to expand its connections with other cities, locally or internationally, to bring about progress and advancement in the field of business investments, tourism, health and education which will redound to the benefit of our city and its people, Ang stressed./CGC
