US military promises to fix Zamboanga City airport runway

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines — The US military has committed to rehabilitate the battered 1.8-kilometer runway of the Zamboanga City International Airport which it has been using for about a dozen years, the airport’s manager said.

Danilo Abareta, ZCIA area manager, said the US Armed Forces, through the US-led Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines (JSOTFP), has pledged to start the rehabilitation of the runway by the “first or second week of August.”

Abareta said the rehabilitation work  will focus on filling with asphalt the “many potholes on the runway.”

He said while the potholes were not alarming, some have deepened to about two inches over time and were becoming a problem for pilots.

The rehabilitation work will run for about two weeks but Abareta said no flights would be affected.

“This will make taking off and landing smooth and  past problems encountered by pilots will be gone,” Abareta said.

He said he had no clear idea  how much the US military would be spending to get the job done.

But he said based on the commitment, the repair work will be undertaken by Filipino laborers and an engineer  who will be supervised by an American.

Earlier, Mayor Maria Isabelle Salazar admitted asking the US military for help in the rehabilitation of the airport’s runway.

“They have been using our airport since 2002 and we’ve been asking their support for air facilities if they will stay here longer,” she said.

Salazar said the new JSTOFP commander, Colonel Erik Brown, had pledged help but “we are still awaiting for the figures” on how much the repair job would cost.

Abareta said the US military lands huge aircraft such as the Boeing C17 Globemaster on the airport, using the dilapidated runway.

He said that the rehabilitation of the airport had no connection with the anti-terror campaign under the Visiting Forces Agreement.

“They use the runway and they use big planes. So I thought they might be able to help us fix it,” Abareta said.

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