Saying goodbye to ‘Domestic’

Many of you from the regions outside Metro Manila will recall fondly how, in your first airplane ride to the nation’s capital, you disembarked at the Manila Domestic terminal, often called the “Domestic” which was designated as NAIA terminal 4.

- JOHN TRIA

Having recently passed through this area along the Airport Road in Pasay City, I found that this one-storey structure is now gone.

That said, there are stories many of us remember about this building that helped us process the exhilarating experience of flight, Philippine civil aviation, and the first-time arrival at the nation’s capital.

I do not know much about the terminal’s history beyond my own experience of the place in the 1970s and 1980s. I would like to use this column to encourage readers to comment about this terminal and its surroundings on the official social media pages of the Manila Bulletin. This can be our own contribution to recording social and cultural histories, which are part of our lived experiences as Filipinos.

In this column I would like to share my own experience.