PIMENTEL BATS FOR DIRECT MANILA-PHNOM PENH FLIGHTS

PHNOM PENH -- Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel Jr. (PDP-Laban) today backed current efforts of the Philippines and Cambodia to have direct flights between Manila and Phnom Penh.

Pimentel said that direct flights between the capital cities of the two friendly Southeast Asian countries will spur the growth of tourism, cultural exchange and trade between them.

"I support ongoing negotiation to establish direct flights between Manila and Phnom Penh. For it is only by making these direct flights available in both countries that Filipinos and Cambodians will be encouraged to travel and increase their interaction," he said.

The negotiation for such direct flights between the aviation authorities and airline companies in the Philippines and Cambodia began Monday.

Pimentel said similar effort to establish flights between Manila and Kota Kinabalu, capital of Sabah, should likewise be undertaken in earnest.

The opposition senator is now in Phnom Penh to deliver a series of lectures on democracy and governance before the Cambodian parliament which coincides with the International Day of Democracy.