The base shares the single 2,600 metres (8,530 feet) long runway with Puerto Princesa International Airport.

[2][3] The PAF base was named as an honour to Colonel Antonio Bautista, who was killed in action on 11 January 1974 as a F-86 Sabre pilot while engaged in a close air support (CAS) mission against Muslim rebels.

[3] On 14 December 1944, occupying Japanese soldiers herded 150 American POWs who were building the airstrip on Palawan Island (today's Puerto Princesa International Airport and Antonio Bautista Air Base) into air raid trenches, doused them with gasoline, set them afire, then machine-gunned and bayoneted them to death.

Fred Bruni[4] the Palawan POWs' senior officer, who was from Janesville, Wisconsin, with the 192nd Tank Battalion.

The story of their ordeal persuaded General Douglas MacArthur that the rumoured order for the retreating Japanese to "kill all" prisoners was being implemented, thus his rush to liberate the Philippines.