Image courtesy Girlie Cervantes

Bohol's new international airport in the south of the island, to replace the overloaded Tagbilaran airport, has been ruminated for almost two decades, and work has still not commenced. By contrast, just eighteen months after its conceptual design, a new airstrip will be opened for business in central Bohol in August 2011, in the municipality of Danao.

Not quite the Bohol International Airport that the politicians have wanted to replace Tagbilaran Airport but the new airstrip in Danao is an example of what can be achieved in an apolitical environment with 100% support of the local community (typical of almost everything that happens in the remote, mountainous municipality of Danao, surrounded by Bohol's famous Chocolate

Image courtesy Martyn Willes

The new airport - Laguindingan International Airport - under construction in barangay Moog, Laguindingan, is currently a scar on the landscape on the northern tip of Misamis Oriental. It is expected that this new airport will become a major hub for export of agricultural and trade products, and for the import of tourists to the areas around Cagayan De Oro and Iligan City.

As you fly North from Davao to Cebu you may see Laguindingan International Airport off the port wingtip (you have to sit in an "A" seat). The photograph accompanying this new airport news item was taken just a few weeks ago and shows the runway all but complete, with only the runway direction numbers