CLARK FREEPORT – “We still have flights.”
Thus, said Teri Flores, spokesperson of the Luzon International Premiere Airport Development (LIPAD) which operates and maintains the Clark International Airport here at 4 p.m. Thursday.
Flores gave a list of flights using CRK.
On March 26 (Thursday), Korean Air KE 635/636 ICN-CRK-ICN; and Qatar Airways QR 930/931 DOH-CRK-DOH.
On March 28 (Saturday), Korean Air KE 635/636 ICN-CRK-ICN; and then from March 29 onwards Qatar Airways will have four times a week frequency at CRK.
Flores said CRK operates only with a skeletal force and passengers from the said flights are mostly overseas Filipino workers.
“Stranded OFWs are being accommodated by the Bases Conversion Development Authority and the Clark Development Corp.,” she said.
Flores also said departures are composed of foreign tourists who wish to return to their countries.
Flores said weekly flights are down to 16 flights for this week and only eight flights per in April, with Qatar Airways as the only airline left.
Flores said the decision to lockdown CRK is out of their hands since the Inter Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases now has the authority because the whole country is placed under a State of Calamity and Public Health Emergency.
Following Proclamation Nos. 929 and 922 (series 2020), the Philippines is now under a State of Calamity and Public Health Emergency as well as the imposition of a Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine.
President Duterte instructed all local government units to strictly abide by the guidelines provided by the IATFMEID to successfully combat the spread of Covid-19 on March 19, 2020.
It was on May 26, 2014, that then executive secretary Paquito N. Ochoa Jr. signed Executive Order 168 creating the IATFMEID composed of the Department of Health as chair, and members the Department of Interior and Local Government, Department of Justice,Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Labor, Department of Tourism, and the Department of Transportation and Communications.
