By JUNE S. BLANCO
Governor Erico Aumentado is strongly pushing the establishment of offices of the
Bureau of Customs (BoC) and the Bureau of Quarantine (BoQ) at the Tagbilaran City
Airport.
This after travel agencies from South Korea recently indicated interest that they
will field chartered flights direct to Tagbilaran City bringing in tourists from
that country through Pusan, Inchon and Seoul.
To make the vacation here for these tourists convenient, the representatives of
the travel agencies, in a dialogue with Aumentado requested that an office of the
BoC be set up at the city airport.
The governor, himself well-traveled, thought up of setting up not just a customs
office but a quarantine office as well. The existing Bureau of Immigration and
Deportation (BID) office in Tagbilaran City will make the set up a virtual
one-stop shop.
BoC Commissioner Napoleon Morales who attended the regular meeting of the Panglao
Island Tourism Estate Inter-Agency Task Force (PITE IA-TF) presided over by
Aumentado at the Bohol Beach Club last month committed to put up an office at the
city airport.
The governor is slated to go to Cebu this week to meet with the Customs collector
there to discuss the nitty-gritty of setting up a BoC office here in time for the
scheduled flights in December. Personnel of the temporary office here are expected
to be taken from the staff of BoC-Cebu.
In the same breath, Aumentado also asked Dr. Edgardo Sabitsana, Director IV of the
Quarantine Central Office at the South Harbor in Manila to assign a temporary team
of bureau workers at the city airport effective December 2007 when the chartered
flights of Airbus 319 and 320 are expected to fly in.
He said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano
are I favor of the chartered flights to increase the tourism business in Bohol.
The flights to the city airport are expected to continue until such time that the
Panglao Bohol International Airport is completed and operationalized.
Aumentado furnished President Arroyo, Transportation and Communications Secretary
Leandro Mendoza, Air Transportation Office chief Nilo Jatico, Morales and BID
Commissioner Marcelino Chicano Libanan with copies of his Sabitsana letter.
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