This year, the Urban Roamer has finally accomplished an important personal milestone: to have visited all 4 terminals of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. It was a culmination of an air travel experience which began, incidentally, ten years ago when I flew to Boracay out of Terminal 4, AKA the Domestic Airport. It was pre-Urban Roamer so I haven’t really written something about it. And frankly, there was (and still is) not much to write about it anyway., Then in 2010, my flight to Hong Kong provided an opportunity to check out the then quite new Terminal 3, which I got to write about. Then early in March, a flight…
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The Challenge of NAIA Commuting
The Urban Roamer has been quite busy these past few days. Partly because of a personal/work trip coming up later this week. Along with so much work coming in these past few days and some new things coming up, it’s been quite hectic. In any case, this trip is something this roamer looks forward to. For one, this will mark the first time to finally get inside the Leandro Locsin-designed Terminal 1 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). So yes, expect some photos of the terminal soon. Despite the excitement, the Urban Roamer is not looking forward to two things: the traffic going to NAIA Terminal 1 and the…
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Woe NAIA
Ninoy Aquino International Airport or NAIA, Manila and the Philippines’ premier gateway is in the spotlight once again. Sadly, it is not that type of spotlight that would showcase this oft-derided airport in the positive light. This comes with after repeated incidents of passengers being caught by airport security ostensibly because they were carrying some bullets in their luggage upon inspection, a charge being denied by the passengers involved and are in turn crying foul over them being framed for the crime. These incidents have become known as “laglag bala” or dropped bullet incidents, a new low for the airport whose reputation has been in the low for quite a while now.