Vice President Leni Robredo said Friday renaming the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) during this time of global health crisis is ill-timed.
On Thursday, Reps. Paolo Duterte (Davao 1st District) Lord Allan Velasco (Marinduque) and Eric Yap (ACT-CIS Party-list) filed House Bill No. 7031, which aims to change the name of Ninoy Aquino International Airport to Paliparang Pandaigdig ng Pilipinas.
“Nasa gitna tayo ng pandemya, ito pa talaga ang maiisip. Number one, it is ill-timed,” Robredo said in an interview over CNN-Philippines.
“When I first read it…ngayon pa talaga? Now that we need all hands on deck at magtulong-tulong para labanan ang pandemya?” Robredo added.
As of this posting, the Philippines has recorded 33,069 COVID-19 cases, 1,212 fatalities, and 8,910 recoveries.
The coronavirus pandemic also increased the poverty and unemployment rate in the country.
The latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey revealed a record-high 83% of Filipinos who say their life quality got worse in the past 12 months, breaking the previous 62% recorded in June 2008.
SWS surveyed from May 4 to 10 on Filipinos aged 15 years old and above nationwide. Of the total number, 294 are in the National Capital Region, 1,645 are in Balance Luzon (or Luzon outside of Metro Manila), 792 are in the Visayas, and 1,279 in Mindanao.
Meanwhile, Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) latest Labor Force Survey showed Friday that the unemployment rate in the country rosed to 17.7 percent or equivalent to 7.3 million Filipinos displaced due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
However, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) contested the figures and said they are not “actual nor factual.”
Also read: 3 lawmakers, including Paolo Duterte want to rename NAIA
Renaming NAIA is revising history
Vice-President Robredo also said that such resolution to rename NAIA is an attempt to revise history.
“Alam naman nation [we know] why it was named Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Where is our sense of history?” Robredo asked.
NAIA was previously named Manila International Airport but was renamed to Ninoy Aquino International Airport in 1987 through Republic Act No. 6639.
The airport was named after the late opposition leader and Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., a critic of the late dictator President Ferdinand Marcos.
Ninoy was assassinated upon his arrival at what was then the Manila International Airport on August 21, 1983.