It was early in the morning and the smogs over the skylines of Manila are visible from the windows of NAIA 3 terminal. The skies outside is promising a sunny day and the cars' windshields on the highway leading to the airport are reflecting off the sun's rays into where I am.My mom was eyeing me while I was restlessly murmuring to myself that things will be okay and nothing bad will happen. I kept on visualizing the places I've been and how much fun I had during my stay in Angeles City and in Pasay just to keep my mind off wandering from unnecessary thoughts. I matched the sunny weather outside with a relaxing Bosa from my ipods playlist, to take the jitters away somehow. I have to make sure that I avoid the ice cold metal parts of the bench from touching my skin as I wait for our flight. It was just too cold inside the departure lounge. The idea of taking off to the skies to get back home to the south is not comforting, anything but that.

I have been boarding planes for many times over, but still nothing has ever changed the way I perceive flying. Even if its the flag carrier or the second flag carrier which wants to put every Juan into the skies, going up to the skies still creeps me out.

Our flight back to the south according to my boarding ticket is scheduled for 8:45 a.m. with an expected arrival around 10:30 a.m. There were news of how bad the weather in the south is because of the cold front's tail. Some of the streets near the river have flooded over and some families has to head to shelters after the government asked them to vacate their houses. As per NAIA, no notice of any cancellation of flights has been issued yet and by far nothing is considerably alarming.





National Geographic Air Crash Investigation. Too much of it, just too much of that bloody program. That could be the culprit, besides I am boarding a newly leased plane whose model is known for safety, so I shouldn't worry that much. But there is also another thing that bothers me. If there is one weird airport in the world, it could be the Cagayan de Oro domestic airport where our flight is expected to land.
The airport's runway as it sits on top of a hill, makes it difficult for pilots to manuver when it's cloudy, especially in a bad weather condition like this cold front. More often, in weather conditions such as this, flights going to Cagayan gets rerouted to other airports or worse, canceled. The mystery behind this airport is so much that even when the weather forecast is good, some of the flights needs to be redirected to airports in Cebu or in Davao just because clouds over the hill makes it difficult for any planes to make a touch down on the runway. Sometimes, the plane is forced to circle up the skies around the city to wait for the skies over the airport to clear up.

As we got near Cagayan de Oro, I cant help but look out at my window into the dark clouds. The pilot has announced zero visibility and is waiting on queue behind 3 other aircrafts requesting for a green light to land from the Air traffic Control Tower. We are circling around the skies above the city which is completely covered under a blanket of thick clouds. After 15 minutes of gliding across the hopeless invisible airport somewhere down below, the pilot decided that we'll land in Cebu Mactan International Airport for a pit stop to refuel and to wait out the bad weather, before trying a second attempt on landing the plane on Cagayan de Oro's domestic airport. If worse comes to worst the plane would have to go back to Manila and we'd be stranded, waiting, in the airport to for further announcements from the office of Cebu Pacific.


After almost two hours of waiting the Pilot receives a go signal from Cagayan de Oro's Air Traffic Control Tower. This would be our last attempt to land on the airport of the city before the pilot will be forced to head the plane back to Manila.