MANILA, 14 August — The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) is getting ready to meet the transportation needs of arriving Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) when midnight flights will be diverted from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) to Clark Field in Pampanga later this year.
International and domestic flights arriving and departing from 12 midnight to 7 a.m. at NAIA will be diverted to Clark International Airport from November to May when repair work on the runway takes place, OWWA Administrator Wilhelm Soriano told Arab News.
“I support the fear of the arriving OFWs that this will cause a little difficulty for them, particularly on the cost of transportation, but I am also open to the reason of (NAIA) General Manager (Edgar) Manda that this is really a necessary thing to be done,” Soriano said.
He said OWWA was ready to provide a shuttle bus from Clark to NAIA for arriving OFWs and their families. “We have several vehicles that can be used to ferry the OFWs and their families,” he said.
The idea of a shuttle bus is also acceptable to former sectoral representatives Isidro Aligada and Omar Fajardo.
“The shuttle bus would reduce the inconveniences wrought on arriving OFWs,” Aligada said.
Fajardo told Arab News that an analysis of the implications of this move by a group studying of representatives of the labor and transport departments revealed that 70 percent of those arriving were from northern Luzon anyway.
“This might even be better” because, according to Fajardo, those arriving would have to contend with less traffic. He said it would take an OFW living in Monumento, Caloocan, hours to go home from NAIA but only 1 hour from Clark. Besides, traffic around the airport would be lessened.
“OFWs need to be properly informed about this so there would be no confusion,” Aligada added.
