Means of transportation is one big factor in the full economic development of a community. With the recent developments, Dipolog has now become the meeting center of all these. By land, air and the sea, you name it and the city has become one.

The city has become one of the bases of Mindanao’s biggest land transportation company, the Mindanao Rural Transit, Inc. or popularly known now as the Rural Bus Company connecting it directly to the major cities of the island with day and night trips.

This is beside the individual small land transportation companies plying the city’s routes to the rural areas in the province. Then lately because of the growing bulk of air passengers, the city’s airport, the only and best in this part of Mindanao, is now being served by two of  the country’s big airline companies, PAL and Cebu Pacific, with daily direct flights to Manila.

The city’s airport also caters to passengers from neighboring cities and provinces not served by any airline because of lack of airport facilities, like the provinces of Misamis Occidental, Zamboanga del Sur and Zamboanga Sibugay and its capital town of Ipil and the cities of Dapitan, Tangub, Ozamiz and Pagadian.

With the continuing development plans and programs of the Air Transportation Office (ATO), Dipolog airport will soon be expanded and extended to cater to bigger planes and be provided with night landing lights to allow not only daytime but also night flights. And recently with the growing bulk of passengers who travel by sea, more shipping lines have come to serve. Adding to the regular trips of George & Peter Lines, the Cokaliong and Sulpicio is the recent coming in of Negros Navigation. Dipolog is served by the province’s main seaport at Pulauan in Dapitan. But soon Dipolog will have its own seaport.

Soon Dipolog can be reached directly through the sea with the opening and operation of its Galas Feeder Port. Its facilities have been made ready and initial negotiations with the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) have been made for its opening and commercial operation. No doubt, Dipolog will all the more become truly “the gateway” being a direct link to Visayas and Luzon and “the commercial hub” more so with direct transportation links through land, the sea and air.

This is attested by the brisk daily business activities in the city and the coming in of more capital and opening of more commercial establishments. (Dipolog Chronicle, Vol.VI No.5)

Credits: Dipolog Chronicle is published every Saturday and its Editorial Office is located at 059 Lacaya St., Dipolog and can be reached through the following Tel. No.: 212-2255