BUTUAN CITY—The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines will soon have its own K-9 division to secure all its 44 commercial airports nationwide.
During a meeting held last April 11 at the Almont Inland Resort in Butuan City, director-general William K. Hotchkiss III ordered the creation of the unit as well as the construction of a K-9 division academy at the Butuan-Bancasi Airport in Agusan del Norte.
Hotchkiss cited the initiative of CAAP area 12 manager Evangeline Daba in creating the agency’s first team of bomb-sniffing and narcotics-detecting dogs.
The K-9 unit now has 10 active dogs which are assigned to the five airports in CAAP’s Central Mindanao areas.
“Her development of a K-9 unit is so effective that her effort has been widely acknowledged by local governments in her jurisdiction,” Hotchkiss said.
According to Hotchkiss, Daba’s initiative has caught the interest of the community, which has responded positively and helped out by donating more dogs to expand the K-9 unit pool.
“They know it is for the good of the community so they are pitching in. The K-9 unit is ultimately for their own welfare, because having safe and secure airports in the region would usher economic growth,” he said.