DAVAO CITY – The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH)-Davao Region will build a 400-bed capacity “container city” worth P100 million as additional holding facilities for arriving air passengers who will be swabbed for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the Davao International Airport.
DPWH-Davao Region public affairs and information officer Dean Ortiz said on Thursday that a total of 200 prefabricated container vans will be established in a 1.92-hectare lot located beside the “tent city” at the existing airport along C.P. Garcia Highway in this city.
He said the additional holding facilities that will have two beds per container van will be completed by December this year.
“The container vans are already on the way from the capital. We are currently preparing for the construction, and we can start as soon as the containers are here,” he said.
Ortiz said the agency earlier allotted P120 million for the conversion of the airport’s old terminal to a 100-bed holding area and the construction of the 1.74-hectare 400-bed capacity “tent city” comprising 20 tents, with 10 rooms at two beds each.
The old terminal used to house the office of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) until it vacated the building last July.
The construction of the "tent city" was completed last month, he said.
The local government of Davao targets to increase the capacity of the holding areas in the airport to 1,000 beds as it required to swab passengers with no “negative” COVID-19 test result through reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), issued within 72 hours before their scheduled departure from the airport of origin.
Those who are cleared for COVID-19 may proceed home for a mandatory 14-day quarantine.
Mayor Sara Duterte had earlier said that the local government needs to increase the capacity of its holding facilities to be able to open more commercial flights going to and from the city.
Based on the data released by the City tourism and Operations Office, arrivals in the city through air travel from March to August this year were reported at 128,542, a decrease by 90 percent from 1,349,730 reported during the same period last year.